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default-cube · 3 years

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So I've never actually seen /u/ryans01 excellent post re-posted here on tumblr, and I think it could help a lot of people, so I'll repost it below. Link to the original

(Who am I? My name’s Ryan and I live in Canada. Just moved to a new city for a dream job that I got because of the rules below. I owe a lot of my success to people much cooler, kinder, more loving and greater than me. When I get the chance to maybe let a little bit of help out, it’s a way of thanking them. )

Rule numero uno - There are no more zero days. What's a zero day? A zero day is when you don't do a single fucking thing towards whatever dream or goal or want or whatever that you got going on. No more zeros. I'm not saying you gotta bust an essay out everyday, that's not the point. The point I'm trying to make is that you have to make yourself, promise yourself, that the new SYSTEM you live in is a NON-ZERO system. Didnt' do anything all fucking day and it's 11:58 PM? Write one sentence. One pushup. Read one page of that chapter. One. Because one is non zero. You feel me? When you're in the super vortex of being bummed your pattern of behaviour is keeping the vortex goin, that's what you're used to. Turning into productivity ultimate master of the universe doesn't happen from the vortex. It happens from a massive string of CONSISTENT NON ZEROS. That's rule number one. Do not forget.

La deuxieme regle - yeah i learnt french. its a canadian thing. please excuse the lack of accent graves, but lemme get into rule number 2. BE GRATEFUL TO THE 3 YOU'S. Uh what? 3 me's? That sounds like mumbo jumbo bullshit. News flash, there are three you's homeslice. There's the past you, the present you, and the future you. If you wanna love someone and have someone love you back, you gotta learn to love yourself, and the 3 you's are the key. Be GRATEFUL to the past you for the positive things you've done. And do favours for the future you like you would for your best bro. Feeling like shit today? Stop a second, think of a good decision you made yesterday. Salad and tuna instead of Big Mac? THANK YOU YOUNGER ME. Was yesterday a nonzero day because you wrote 200 words (hey, that's all you could muster)? THANK YOU YOUNGER ME. Saved up some coin over time to buy that sweet thing you wanted? THANK YOU. Second part of the 3 me's is you gotta do your future self a favour, just like you would for your best fucking friend (no best friend? you do now. You got 2. It's future and past you). Tired as hell and can't get off reddit/videogames/interwebs? fuck you present self, this one's for future me, i'm gonna rock out p90x Ab Ripper X for 17 minutes. I'm doing this one for future me. Alarm clock goes off and bed is too comfy? fuck you present self, this one's for my best friend, the future me. I'm up and going for a 5 km run (or 25 meter run, it's gotta be non zero). MAKE SURE YOU THANK YOUR OLD SELF for rocking out at the end of every.single.thing. that makes your life better. The cycle of doing something for someone else (future you) and thanking someone for the good in your life (past you) is key to building gratitude and productivity. Do not doubt me. Over time you should spread the gratitude to others who help you on your path.

Rule number 3- don't worry i'm gonna too long didnt' read this bad boy at the bottom (get a pencil and piece of paper to write it down. seriously. you physically need to scratch marks on paper) FORGIVE YOURSELF. I mean it. Maybe you got all the know-how, money, ability, strength and talent to do whatever is you wanna do. But lets say you still didn't do it. Now you're giving yourself shit for not doing what you need to, to be who you want to. Heads up champion, being dissapointed in yourself causes you to be less productive. Tried your best to have a nonzero day yesterday and it failed? so what. I forgive you previous self. I forgive you. But today? Today is a nonzero masterpiece to the best of my ability for future self. This one's for you future homes. Forgiveness man, use it. I forgive you. Say it out loud.

Last rule. Rule number 4, is the easiest and its three words. exercise and books. that's it. Pretty standard advice but when you exercise daily you actually get smarter. when you exercise you get high from endorphins (thanks body). when you exercise you clear your mind. when you exercise you are doing your future self a huge favour. Exercise is a leg on a three legged stool. Feel me? As for books, almost every fucking thing we've all ever thought of, or felt, or gone through, or wanted, or wanted to know how to do, or whatever, has been figured out by someone else. Get some books max. Post to reddit about not caring about yourself? Good first step! (nonzero day, thanks younger me for typing it out) You know what else you could do? Read 7 habits of highly successful people. Read "emotional intelligence". Read "From good to great". Read “thinking fast and slow”. Read books that will help you understand. Read the bodyweight fitness reddit and incorporate it into your workouts. (how's them pullups coming?) Reading is the fucking warp whistle from Super Mario 3. It gets you to the next level that much faster.

That’s about it man. There’s so much more when it comes to how to turn nonzero days into hugely nonzero days, but that’s not your mission right now. Your mission is nonzero and forgiveness and favours. You got 36 essays due in 24 minutes and its impossible to pull off? Your past self let you down big time, but hey… I forgive you. Do as much as you can in those 24 minutes and then move on.

I hope I helped a little bit max. I could write about this forever, but I promised myself I would go do a 15 minute run while listening to A. Skillz Beats Working Vol. 3. Gotta jet. One last piece of advice though. Regardless of whether or not reading this for the first time helps make your day better, if you wake up tomorrow, and you can’t remember the 4 rules I just laid out, please, please. Read this again.

Have an awesome fucking day ☺

tldr; 1. Nonzero days as much as you can. 2. The three you’s, gratitude and favours. 3. Forgiveness 4. Exercise and books (which is a sneaky way of saying self improvement, both physical, emotional and mental)

Edit: Wow reddit gold? Thanks! No idea what to do with it or whats the deal but many thanks!

Edit2: Someone asked what I meant by "much more when it comes to how to turn nonzero days into hugely nonzero days". The long and short of it is a simple truth, but it's tough to TOTALLY UNDERSTAND AND PRACTICE. It's this: you become what you think. This doesnt mean if I think of a tree, I'll be oakin' it by august. It means that the WAY you think, the THINGS you think of, and the IDEAS YOU HOLD IN YOUR MIND defines the sum total that is you. You procrastinate all the time and got fear and worry goin on for something? You are becoming a procrastinator. You keep thinking about how much you want to run that 5 k race in the spring and finish a champion? Are ya keeping it in mind all the time? Is it something that is defining your ACTIONS and influencing you DECISIONS? If it is, then you're becoming the champion you're dreaming about. Dreaming about it makes it. Think and it shall be. But do not forget that action is thought's son. Thoughts without actions are nothing. Have faith in whatever it is you've steeled your mind to. Have faith and follow through with action.

Ok, Ryan that's a bunch of nice words n shit, but how does that help me turn slightly nonzero days into hugely nonzero days. Do you believe all these words you just read? Does it makes sense to you that you BECOME WHAT YOU THINK OF? Ask yourself: What do I think of? When you get home and walk in the door. (how quickly did you turn that laptop on? Did turning it on make you closer to your dreams? What would?) At the bus stop. Lunch break. What direction are you focusing your intentions on? If you're like I was a few years ago, the answer was either No direction, or whatever caught my eye at the moment. But no stress, forgive yourself. You know the truth now. And knowing the truth means you can watch your habits, read books on how you think and act, and finally start changing your behaviour. Heres an example: Feeling like bunk cause you had zero days or barely nonzero days? THINK ABOUT WHAT YOURE DOING. and change just a little bit more. in whatever positive direction you are choosing to go.

Edit3: WHOA! This blew up! Major appreciation to Modified_Duck for making this cool ass image: http://i.imgur.com/7xsp7hJ.png

Edit4: Another AMAZING DESKTOP BACKGROUND! http://www.reddit.com/r/GetMotivated/comments/1rowpb/i_made_a_wallpaper_from_uryans01s_amazing_quote/

#tips #adhd tips #adhd-tips #depression tips #mental health #neurodivergent #neurodiverse #nd #depression #autism #autistic

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asterekmess · 4 years

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Somebody tickled my salty-bone (in a good way. I love you. thank you.) and now I wanna vent about the absolute shitshow that is Stiles and Scott’s friendship.

Forewarning, I have a v faulty memory and I like to ramble. So. Obligatory Read More.

hoo boy. Now look, I am a salty little sea witch. I don’t like Scott. I love me some Stiles. Listen, I want to acknowledge here that Stiles isn’t perfect. He’s not the best friend that could ever friend, especially not at the beginning of the show. Yeah, he says stuff that riles Scott up. And yeah, he chucks lacrosse balls at Scott bc he’s pissed off at him. And he gets him beat up by blaming him for keying a car. These are objectively shitty things.

Now on to Scott. I’m starting at the beginning, because some brit chick told me once it’s a good place to start. It’s an anti-scott favorite to point out Star Wars. But I wanna talk about the history of Stiles and Scott’s friendship in general. We’re not explicitly told how long they’ve been friends. It’s implied “for ages” but there’s a lot of evidence that points to them not knowing each other until later (my preference is the 5th grade, just after Stiles’ mom died).

Stiles had a boa once, apparently. But Scott doesn’t know this. Stiles was apparently friends with Heather since they were in diapers but Scott doesn’t know her. Stiles has panic attacks and apparently a social anxiety disorder, but Scott has no clue about it.

Stiles doesn’t actually share many, if any, passions/interests with Scott besides Lacrosse. We know Stiles can skate, but Scott has never done it before Ice Pick episode. We know Stiles has other friends like Heather, but they’ve somehow never been introduced to Scott. Stiles plays videogames “Online gaming community that battles mythical creatures” but Scott has no clue what he’s talking about. Stiles has a favorite movie series that Scott has never watched. Scott, if I’m honest, got totally shafted by the show. He has no interests. We see a little dartboard on his wall in his room. We see posters. But he doesn’t do ANYTHING except play lacrosse and go to work at the vet. Then he gets a motorbike, which I guess....is supposed to count as a personality trait? We know jack-shit about Scott’s hobbies, even though he’s the main character. And what we do know is in Negatives. We know he has a shit vocabulary. We know he doesn’t like to read. (at least...before his “better Scott McCall program”) We know he doesn’t bowl. We know he sucks at literally all school related things. We know he has literally no other friends besides Stiles, until he becomes a werewolf.

But to me, what stands out is how...unobliging Scott is about their friendship?

It’s established that Scott usually runs around with Stiles when he’s got an idea, yeah. Two bros being dumbasses. Got it. But Stiles clearly has this whole mentality/joke view of them that’s Batman & Robin “I don’t wanna be Robin all the time” but Scott just sort of...shuts him down? “No one’s batman and robin any of the time”

I acknowledge that it’s a sort of tense situation...kind of? He’s sneaking into an empty bus lot to go sniff at the crime scene. He’s not really in danger here? But his tone of voice is so dismissive? Like he’s completely confused that Stiles would ever think that. But if they’ve been friends for ages, why would he only just now be finding out about it? And why would he dismiss it if they’re that close?

Then, of course, there’s Star Wars. Like...fine, whatever, Scott doesn’t like Star Wars. Except that it’s not that he doesn’t like it. It’s that he refuses to watch it. He knows nothing about Stiles’ favorite movie? He gets frustrated when Stiles makes Star Wars jokes because he doesn’t get them. But even KiRA is willing to watch it, and he just laughs about it.

Jackson and Lydia were supposed to be garbage to each other, but she still watched lacrosse videos with him and he watched The Notebook however many times Lydia wanted. If the couple we’re supposed to think is shitty is more kind to each other than Scott is to Stiles, what am I supposed to take away from that?

There’s also the part where he never just...believes Stiles? Not unless it’s in his favor. Sure, it sounds crazy that Stiles tells him he’s a werewolf and he’s gonna go crazy on a full moon. But Scott watched his bite completely disappear. He knows the shit he did on the field was bizarre and physically impossible for him. He doesn’t need his inhaler anymore. He heard Allison talking from Outside the School. There’s so much evidence to back Stiles up here, it’s ridiculous. And Scott still won’t believe him. Stiles tells Scott he thinks Matt’s the killer. Scott asks him why, Stiles doesn’t have an answer, and Scott immediately shuts him down. He tells Scott that it isn’t Lydia, and Scott argues with him, citing a test that he later admits he thinks is bullshit! Stiles tells Scott that virgins are being sacrificed and he’s scared he’ll be next, Scott laughs at him. Stiles tells Scott he thinks he was the one who wrote that shit on the board, the one who planted the bomb. Scott refuses to listen to him. He warns him about Theo, gets completely blown off. And Stiles is almost never wrong. But Scott continues to ignore him and refuses to believe him. Meanwhile Stiles believes Scott about Derek being dangerous. He believes Scott about Derek being the one in the bus. About how Peter is going after Allison (He must be going after Allison, the national archery finalist who’s always surrounded by hunters. Surely she’s “vulnerable.” It’s not like there’s someone way more vulnerable following Scott around, someone that Peter might force into helping him find Derek? HMMM?) Think about it, when does Stiles ever doubt Scott?

How he outright ignores Stiles just constantly? Even after he loses his temper with Stiles in the room in episode 1, he still goes to the Fucking Party. Even after Stiles tells him he can’t be in lacrosse anymore because it’s too dangerous, he ‘tries’ to quit and when he’s told that if he won’t play one game, he’s off first line, he outright ignores Stiles and fights with him until Stiles backs off and lets him play, where he proceeds to do EXACTLY what Stiles and Derek thought he would, and loses control. If ALlison hadn’t been there. People would have died. A kid from the other team saw Scott’s wolf eyes. He exposed himself! Then there’s the parts where he just pretends Stiles doesn’t exist. When he goes to hang out with Allison, and Stiles can’t get him on the phone, and when he finally answers he admits “did you get my texts?” “Yeah, all nine million of them” that he was literally just refusing to text Stiles back while he sat in the car with Allison and did nothing else. He won’t tell Stiles where he’s going, and he turns his phone off once they get to the woods. He also turns his phone off while Stiles is trying to take care of Derek, who IS POISONED and Bleeding and SHOT. Instead of trying to do anything he willfully ignores it and makes out with Allison, then wanders the house with Allison, then eats dinner with the family. He could’ve pulled the ‘i need to use the restroom’ ANY FUCKING TIME. He could’ve explained in a text at ANY TIME what he was doing and why it was taking so long. he just refused. When Stiles calls at the pool, Scott has no reason to hang up. Yeah, the phone made noise while it was ringing but after he hung up on Stiles he continued to just sit there with Allison and whisper to each other. He could’ve fucking talked on the phone! There was NOthing stopping him!

Then there’s how much danger he’s happy to put Stiles in? Like, he still hated Derek and thought he was a dangerous thug, while ignoring Stiles’ messages and leaving him alone with Derek. They knew Jackson was dangerous and had attacked Stiles before, and he left Stiles alone in the van with him?? Jackson wouldn’t need to break out of the vehicle, just the cuffs and Stiles would be dead. But for some reason Scott goes to school? LIke yeah I get it. He might fail his classes. But Stiles gave up first line just to check if Scott’s mom was the Alpha. Why couldn’t allison have watched Jackson with an arrow pointed at his head? She was better equipped than Stiles and in no danger of failing classes.

Look, I know I’m only talking about the first couple seasons but I have a rlly bad memory and I haven’t seen s3a or s3b in a long ass time. (gonna have to watch ‘em later tho while I work on the rewrite)

There’s probably more I’m missing. I’m just so damn cranky and sad. I’ll probably add more eventually when I get mad enough abt it.

#personal #Meta Ramblings #rant #anti-scott mccall #should I not be putting these 'read more' things in?#there's a weirdly big descrepancy in notes between my rants with read more's and my rants without

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aclosetfan · 3 years

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(ask game) thank you so much for playing the game!! you’re the best (per usual)!!

Helllll yeahhhhh 21 is the DUMBEST STUPIDEST fic I’ve ever made and I lovvveee it 💚💙❤️ it’s the “Vampire Zombie” one i mentioned in the original ask game post 😂😂

So glad someone picked the number!! Background to keep in mind: do yall remember when there was just a shit ton of Vampire fics on FFN?? Idk about ao3, but for newer fandom members this was TOTALLY a trend in the early 2000s on ffn, and I was like why the fuck are all of these here??? And like, why is it constantly a predator-prey relationship between the rrb and ppg??? So I was like wait…okay, but this could be funny and decided to write a story making fun of these super cringey stereotypes.

The story would be a multi fic and I have zero idea how to explain it concisely, so basically below the cut is just me laying it all out for you srsly I’m just bearing my soul to you:

For the girls’ birthday, the Professor tricks out the simulation room they train in to be a VR game room b/c the girls had talked about VR once (and only once), but the Professor thought it was cool and ran with it. The Girls can create a world of their choosing and explore. They admit the idea is pretty cool and eventually start arguing where they should “go” first. Blossom suggests a historical era like the Victorian era/Bubbles suggests something romantic, where she hints at vampires/Buttercup doesn't like any of those ideas, but the vampires reminded her of all of her zombie videogames she plays and she ends up suggesting something like that instead/ To prevent arguing the Professors says he’ll combine all three ideas into one!

[[how does this machine work??? IDK in the spirit of early 2000 fanfics, anything complicated and confusing is only vaguely explained—which has in story effects that drive Blossom INSANE! Idk how it would work technically, but my choices as the writer on what is/is not describe and purposeful grammar mistakes has story implications] [ill explain this more later]]

The Professor loads up the “game,” but something malfunctions. He tells the girls (Buttercup) not to touch anything. She doesn't listen and ends up plugging something into an entirely different device against Blossom & Bubbles protest. The device is that old “time machine” thing the Professor made in one of the OG cartoon (the one where the girls meet the Young Professor). It turns out that whatever she does (again still don't ask me how) fuses the basic concept of the two machines together and creates a device that transports them to a parallel universe that matches the specifications of the “game” they wanted to create.

[[Throughout the story, i want to include little video game gags, like bottomless bags for storage, or random bullets laying around, little things like that. (they've lost their powers/ but BC keeps finding all these random guns/knifes so they're good) I also give the girls the “ability” to read the dialogue I write. So, when I mess up a comma (i.e. Let’s eat Grandma! vs Let’s eat, Grandma!), Blossom will look at the “character” they’re talking to and be like, “WELL, which is IT!?”] [I know it’s stupid, but I think its so fun!]]

So, because of the video game “glitch,” the girls think for the longest time they’re actually IN a video game, but when they “go to sleep” thinking that’ll save the game and they can quit, per Professor’s instruction, they find out they can’t. Cue freak out. After the calm down, Buttercup’s like okay, listen we probably just have to beat the game! Too bad they don’t know what the game’s objective is exactly. They just know they’re dressed in Victorian Era clothes and their “Professor” is the town’s doctor? Their mother died (tragically). It’s all a bit dramatic. They start searching for clues. Eventually, they find out that the Town has a zombie problem (THANKS BUTTERCUP!), and Blossom figures if they can cure that, they beat the game. Unbeknownst to them, they are actually stuck in a stupid vampire love plot there just happens to be zombies. [Like, you can’t have one supernatural creature without another and I wasn’t going to write about werewolves.] No one in town seems to care about the undead problem. Buttercup keeps “leveling up,” Blossom’s on the verge of a breakdown, and then, finally, Bubbles meets Boomer.

Boomer swears up and down Bubbles is his fated mate. Bubbles—who is definitely interested—is like ooo so you’re a vampire, cutie? He’s broody about it. She’s like so do you sparkle in the sun?? (I absolutely love sparkles, she says). He’s like, wut?? She’s like, do you sparkle???? He’s like, uh no, the sun kind of burns my energy tho. She’s like, oh. Okay. I see. You don’t sparkle. Sooo, well, haha, okay you seem like a really really sweet guy with the whole eternal devotion thing, but I don’t think this is really going to work out between us. He’s again like WUT. Boomer gets broken up with because he doesn’t sparkle.

Vampire Butch is flat out scared of Buttercup. Like he fully admits he’s sucked infants dry of their blood; he’s why people should fear the night; he’s not a “good guy”; but BC is a force to be reckoned with. In the Victorian era, I’m guessing they had little to no experience with the modern day “bro” and BC is full on bro. This doesn’t mesh well with Butch’s broody, dark, vampire thing he’s got going on. She’s too vulgar for a Victorian lady, she wears things called “Chacos,” and she has a gun??? Multiple guns. And He. Has. No. Fucking. Idea. What. She. Is. Saying!! No! He will not “dab her up!” No, he “doesn’t lift.” This wasn’t his mysterious, tough (but still a damsel, mind you) mate he met one fateful evening, this was some heathen creature (and this is coming from a vampire), so please, please, please, can he kill her?????

Blossom’s like I don’t like to be touched and I’m a lesbian, and Brick’s like one) I think I respect you more than the old Blossom; two) the zombies just appeared, stop asking; three) you need to now help us find our mates before their eighteenth birthday or we’re all screwed.

Ready to kick ass and fight sexist stereotypes with their new “bros,” the girls set out with their new objective, hoping beyond hope that once they find the missing girls they’ll be able to go home. The girls find out that their parallel alternatives went disappearing a few days ago, so their “return” had been a relief to the whole town. [[Blossom’s like why did no one question our clothing?!?! Why are there zombies?!?!]] ugh and then, I don’t know what happens :( really. I never really ended it. They girls just constantly shit on the boys being broody vampires and kick zombie ass, like idk what else a gal could want out of a story. I feel like they end up finding the other girls. And I think that I was going to bring HIM into the mix, but it’s still just regular HIM. It turns out that HIM likes jumping dimensions to make the Girls life hell in every lifetime and has cursed the three girls living in the vampire dimension. (“I’ve got a life outside of just you, ya know.” HIM huffed, “What are you three doing here?”) It also turns out that out of all the dimensions, our Girls as Superheroes are the best at beating HIM and saving the day, so he’s extra pissy that they’re ruining his carefully crafted “historical romance vampire soap opera.” Blossom loses her shit because the historical inaccuracies are too high to now ignore, Bubbles is pissed because HIM didn’t make good enough vampires, and Buttercup’s like honestly, not a bad game, ngl. Everyone ignores her.

[[They beat HIM, free the other girls, return home, and BC obsesses over their stats sheets. Back in Vampire land, the boys are like wait a second the relationships we are now stuck in suck.] [The zombies are still not explained]]

#21 #is such a good number #my outlines #my writing #outline ask game #ppg fic outline #this is so stupid but come on I miss early 2000 fanfics #also like i said I don't know how i would even write the gaming glitches #but it would be really fun to figure out #maybe i WILL write this one someday just for the fun of it!!#lemme kno what you think #this is my last one tonight but plz keep on asking lol

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vannahfanfics · 3 years

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Before you read, here’s the previous chapter. New? Start from the beginning!

Crimson Butterflies

Ao3

Chapter 3: Gotten Lucky

Touya awoke with the sunrise, as he often did. He groaned as the spears of light flowing through the moth-eaten curtains played over his face, eyes fluttered as they tried to adjust to the sun. He leaned over the arm of the couch, inadvertently pushing the throw pillow to the ground, to see the light puddling across the dusty wood like slowly-spreading spilled milk. His back cracked as he arched it, and then he flopped back down against the couch, running his hand over his face. When he pulled it away, he found a smear of blood across his index finger that he’d apparently missed when showering last night.

He’d given Moe the one bed in the apartment, because he wasn’t a dick. She’d passed out as soon as her head hit the pillow, filling his bedroom with quiet, peaceful snores. As he stood over her, marveling at how young and innocent she looked while she slept, he wondered yet again how she’d ended up beaten and bloodied in an alleyway. It was a question only she could answer, and if Touya had learned anything in his years on the streets, it was that you didn’t exactly gain much information trying to force people to talk.

He’d just have to wait and see, if she stuck around long enough.

Touya scrolled through the news feed on his phone, then, after finding nothing of interest, tossed it on the coffee table and reclined his arms behind his head. Damn, that was a sweet ass Porsche. That dickwad definitely didn’t deserve it, nor the drunk honeys he was sweet-talking into it. Touya’s mouth soured at the thought of how much money he could have made off the car. The worst part wasn’t the loss, really, it was that with Moe here, he couldn’t go out and make up for it. There was no way he was leaving a stranger alone in his apartment unsupervised, especially one with some sketchy past.

Ugh. I don’t want to have to borrow money from Tomura again, he thought with disgust. There was no telling the amount of interest he would charge, and Touya hated being in the guy’s debt. Last time, he’d made him transport something he was ninety percent sure was a dead body, and Touya wasn’t keen on repeating the most stressful two hours of his life. Unfortunately, the creep was pretty well-off, probably from pawning all the shit he nabbed off dead people.

Touya had some questionable acquaintances, okay? That shit came with being a deadbeat.

Touya looked up when he heard the tentative pitter-patter of feet. Moe came creeping down the hallway, looking furtively around the room, but she couldn’t see that Touya was awake from her vantage point. He remained still, a smirk playing over his lips. After a second, the girl tip-toed across the room into the kitchen, disappearing from sight. As quietly as he could, Touya slowly sat up to peer over the back of the couch, where he found her sitting on her knees on his counter to rummage through his cabinets.

“Yellow polka-dot panties? Cute,” he called, and Moe nearly fell off the counter in surprise. Scowling over her shoulder at him, she jerked the back of the tee-shirt over her rump, holding it there with one hand while she continued to rifle through his stores. Touya just crossed his arms over the back of the couch and watched her, amused. She’s a little feistier today.

“How do you live like this?” she huffed, throwing up her hands in defeat when she found nothing to suit her tastes. “You don’t have shit.”

“Beggars can’t be choosers, honey.”

“Well, it looks like you didn’t choose anything,” she countered, turning to hop off the counter. The tee-shirt swished around her legs as she stomped towards him, stopping at the back of the couch to glare at him with her hands pushed primly into her hips. “I’m starving! Don’t you have anything to eat?”

“Well, I’m afraid I didn’t have time to do my grocery run because I was tending to your sweet ass,” he replied matter-of-factly, and her cheeks darkened, probably with a mixture of anger and embarrassment. She snorted and crossed her arms, looking away with a dour pout. Touya languidly rose from the couch, flicking a bit of her blonde hair from her face and causing Moe to gasp in affront. “Don’t be mad, sweets,” he purred. “Let me getcha somethin’ halfway-decent to wear, and then we’ll go out and get some food, okay?”

“And just where am I supposed to get clothes?” she shouted after him as he walked to his door, and he just gave her a dismissive wave before stepping out. He walked across the hall and knocked on his neighbor’s door, and he wasn’t two raps of his knuckles in before Himiko was swinging it open, causing him to nearly knock on his forehead.

“Hiya, neighbor! What can I do ya for?” she grinned brightly, and she could almost be mistaken for a cute, nice next-door neighbor if Touya didn’t know that she practiced arcane rituals and summoning spells on the weekends. To each their own, he always said, and Himiko always assured him that no bad spirits would find their way into his apartment.

“Hey, Himiko. I got a lady friend who’s in need of some clothes.”

With wide eyes, Himiko peered around his tall, lanky form to find Moe standing in the doorway, blushing while she fisted the hem of the tee-shirt. Himiko gave him a sly look, and with a blush, he hurriedly lied, “Look, she lost her luggage at the airport and I had to make do. Until they find it, she’s shit out of luck and I don’t got the money for a shoppin’ spree, so can you just loan her a few outfits for the time being?”

Either Himiko bought the fib, or she wasn’t in the mood to pry for once. Dabi didn’t care as long as she didn’t look at him like he had just gotten lucky with Moe.

“Sure thing, Dabi, dear <3 I just so happen to have a bag of goodies I was about to give to donation. She can help herself!~” Himiko grabbed a garbage bag from the entryway and passed it to him, and he grunted a “thanks” while he turned to pass it to Moe. Himiko giggled and blew them a kiss before flouncing back into her apartment, and Touya planked against the opposite wall with a groan. Even just a five-minute conversation with the girl was exhausting.

“She’s a bit weird, but she has good fashion sense,” Moe commented, and he peered through his bangs to see her holding up a tube top. “Lost luggage, huh?” she then sneered, and Touya scowled. “How long do you think that cover story will hold up?”

“Long enough. Now get dressed, I thought you were starving?”

Her stomach growling answered that question and sent her skittering back into the apartment with a shy squeal. Touya remained outside, smiling despite it all. At least she livened up the place.

There was a spring in Moe’s step as they walked out of the apartment together. A pair of dark blue skinnies hugged her legs, and her white cardigan ruffled in the breeze, along with her hair, which was piled into a bun atop her head. She flitted about, commenting about how nice the sunshine was, while Touya just strode along behind her in silence. It was nice to see her in good spirits, at least, but it was a little migraine-inducing for her to be so cheery at eight in the morning. He needed at least another four hours before he was ready to consort with such an optimist.

They walked to the supermarket, and Moe’s demeanor instantly underwent a change. As they strolled through the aisles piling TV dinners, chips, cereal, and other things into the cart, she clung to Touya like glue. Literally, she had her hands curled into the back of his shirt while she peered around him, hiding behind his frame whenever somebody walked by. It was pretty obvious that Moe didn’t want to be seen, but by whom? Well, probably whoever beat her ass in the alley and anyone associated with them.

Sensing her anxieties growing, Touya shoved a lollipop in her face.

“Eh?” she blinked, looking up at him in confusion.

“Stop worryin’,” he huffed. “I’m not gonna let anythin’ happen to you while you’re with me.” She blinked, then smiled shyly, her posture melting like butter in a pan. She popped the plastic off the lollipop, keeping it so the cashier could scan it when they finished, and began sucking on it happily. Just like a kid, Touya thought, but more endearingly than irritatedly. She even climbed in the basket, sitting among the food items sucking her lollipop and demanding to be wheeled around.

Touya wasn’t sure why it was so easy to give into her childish demands. Perhaps it was her smile, the first genuine smile he’d seen grace her lips since he’d come across her in the alleyway, as she stuck out her arms while he pushed her around the supermarket.

Once they’d gotten home with their haul, Moe smashed two bowls of cereal before crashing on his couch, laying on her belly with her heels kicked up over her back. Bored, Touya booted up his old Nintendo to play Super Mario World, and Moe watched him for about half an hour before piping up.

“So what’s your story, Dabi?”

Without looking away from the screen, Touya offered her a smirk.

“We all got secrets, toots, and my ‘story’ is one of them,” he quipped. Out of the corners of his eyes, he watched her lay her cheek on her arms, her expression thoughtful while she watched the pixelated Mario run around the screen stomping Goombas.

“Sorry,” she murmured. “I didn’t mean to offend.”

“You didn’t,” he reassured her, moving the character with one hand while he leaned down to grab a beer from his cooler. He popped it open and took a swig, then continued, “Don’t sweat it.”

“Mm,” was all she said, and they fell back into silence, the only noises being the clacks of the controller and the audio of the videogame. She probably didn’t mean anything by it, but he did just meet her, after all. Maybe she’d stick around, and maybe she’d catch him in a divulging mood one day. But today was not one of those days; today was one of those days where Touya pretended his life wasn’t the shit pile it was and he beat the only game he owned for the hundredth time.

“Hey, um,” she spoke up again sometime later, and from her tone of voice, he thought she was going to apologize again. He turned around, mouth open to tell her not to worry about it, but she cut him off with a shy, “Thank you.” He clamped his mouth shut, the viable skin on his face turning a bit pink. “I never thanked you, you know, for saving me.” Her red-orange eyes stared at the floor as she traced patterns into the dust. “So… Thank you. I’m sure it was a pain.”

He blinked, then smiled wanly.

“Most things in life are, toots. You just gotta roll with it.” She looked up at that, smiling slightly, and he gave her a kind look. “Don’t worry about it. It wouldn’t been a dick move for me to leave you like that. Contrary to what I look like, I’m not a monster.” She laughed, genuinely, and it made him feel kind of floaty and light inside, like maybe things weren’t all bad.

Maybe he’d gotten lucky with this girl after all, fluttering into his life like a butterfly on the breeze. He supposed he’d just have to stick with her and find out.

Enjoy this story? Here’s the next chapter! Please consider perusing my Table of Contents.

#dabi #touya todoroki #todoroki touya #moe kamiji #kamiji moe #burning #dabi x burnin #burnin x dabi #my hero academia #mha #boku no hero academia #bnha

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zagisbi · 4 years

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I played a run with the new update last night, here are some impressions (in the order I remember them happening):

AHHHHHHHHHHHH

ACHILLES IS SUPER HANDSOME AND NOW HE JUST EXISTS ALWAYS

New cosmetics in the house 😭😭😭 I'm too poor for this

THE WEAPONS... THE DARKNESS BOOST ANIMATION GOT A GLOW. UP.

New Daedalus Hammer options? 👀 Count me IN

The hand... Chain... Things? Awful. (But excellent)

The new miniboss? Suck my dick that fight sucked and was very scary 😭😭 (8/10)

Chaos still out here lookin like a SNACC and I can't wait to get all of their new boons

New rooms? GORGEOUS

CHARON REALLY BE OUT HERE GIVING LOOKS! MONSTERFUCKERS WON!

THE RAINBOWS WHEN YOU GET BOONS NOW???? HUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU-

No seriously mfers said "give the gays everything they want" AND MEANT IT!!!

The new burrowing mfs and circle spread witches can honestly eat a brick Asphodel is truly a punishment now (9/10 tho)

LERNIE OUT HERE GETTING NEW HORNS 😭😭 KILL IT QUEEN (but that increased range almost killed me so 😶)

Okay but deadass the heads that spit out the things that make enemies spawn? Those suck. Hated that. (6/10)

WAIT THAT DIONYSUS BOON THAT MAKES THE FOUNTAINS HEAL YOU TO FULL? BITCH THAT CAME IN MF CLUTCH

I would Die for Hermes (this has not changed since he was introduced)

I've always hated Elysium. The new rooms are way worse (especially bc I was using the bow which isn't my best weapon) and I got my ass beat but the FOUNTAIN SAVED ME DIONYSUS IS 👌WE STAN LIKE 6 MEN

Okay also the fact that the shops don't give you death defiance until you need it? 😳 THAT IS SO SEXY OF THEM

NEW ITEMS INCLUDING THE CENTAUR SOULS YES PLEASE

Charon is still sexy

SUPERGIANT CALL ME I THINK YOU SHOULD ADD ISIS AS YOUR NEXT GODDESS AND I WILL GIVE YOU AN ESSAY EXPLAINING WHY AND ALSO WHAT ABILITIES SHE COULD HAVE

I found that shield guys were easier to fight and that's probably just me BUT I'll give it to them anyway

THANATOS IS STILL MY BOY(FRIEND) AND I LOVE HIM VERY DEARLY AND NOW KILLING ENEMIES WITH HIM IS ACTUALLY A COMPETITION

I love that they made Theseus such an ass because my drive to beat him goes up like 700% every time I talk to him so thanks for that and the new dialogue

ATHENA CAME FOR MY WIG DURING THAT FIGHT THO I'M SORRY I WENT TO CHAOS INSTEAD OF YOU

(Not really tho bc Chaos is 😳 if you know what I mean)

OKAY THOSE TUNNELS MURDERED ME I LOST 2 DEATH DEFIANCES AND I DIDN'T EVEN DO THE BOSS ONES LIKE- WAS I OUT OF PRACTICE OR WAS THAT SO MUCH HARDER?

ALSO HADES FUCKING ATE ME LIKE NO SHIT. I BROKE MY 6 WIN STREAK AND IT WAS BECAUSE I WAS GREEDY AND USED THE BOW AT THE HIGHEST HEAT I COULD BUT STILL... HE'S SO MUCH HARDER TO FIGHT THAN HE WAS BEFORE AND HIS BLOODSTONE (SKULLSTONE?) REGEN IS HELLA UNFAIR IMHO

Anyway after I got crucified and sent home, I bought the Dionysus poster because I love him and his new boons

That new bed is killer

I've been playing this game since before Asphodel even existed and before they added most of the weapons and I'm very late game but I have to say, this is probably my favorite update even if I miss some aesthetic things like the old god(ess) icons and stuff like that. This is one of my top 5 videogames ever so keep killing it Supergiant. There is so much I haven't seen and this was after just one run, so I can't wait to see more!

Anyway sorry I tried to make this funny and hope some people like it. 😘✌

#hades #zagreus hades #thanatos hades #hades game #hades supergiant #supergiant games #my post #the blood price update #reaction post #long post #sorry for all the caps btw #hades spoilers #spoilers blood price update #let me know if I should tag it differently

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duhragonball · 5 years

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Dragon Ball GT Retrospective (1/7)

[Note: This was originally written on January 10, 2013. My leg was broken, and I decided to kill some time watching GT all the way through.]

My leg is still broken. On the bright side, this gives me time to catch up on crappy anime. My Tenchi in Tokyo DVD arrived in the mail a while back, and I had already resolved to use my convalescance to watch every episode of Dragon Ball GT. So now I can have what I like to call a Marathon of Crap.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7LyNFxnv78w

I've written about the problems with DBGT before, but now that I've sat through the first fourteen episodes, I feel better informed about them. I think the experience of GT for any fan basically goes like this: STAGE ONE: You finish watching Dragon Ball Z, and you're hopeful that GT will just be 64 more episodes of awesome, even if everyone else who saw it thinks it sucks. STAGE TWO: You start watching it, and quickly recognize why everyone hates it. Nevertheless, you remain hopeful that you'll find some hidden quality that redeems the series in some way. STAGE THREE: You get to the part where Goku is thwarted by a metal grate in a sewer, even though he's spent the entire series performing superhuman feats of strength. You wearily accept that this show refuses to adhere to even the simplest level of continuity. STAGE FOUR: Cool! Super Saiyan 4 Gogeta! They can't possibly screw this u--ohhhhh shit they just did. STAGE FIVE: You refuse to recognize GT as anything remotely resembling canon. STAGE SIX: You buy the DVD box set anyway, because you're a completist and it was on sale. STAGE SEVEN: You watch the series again, now properly aware that it was never going to be a worthy continuation of DBZ, but it's probably got some decent camp value. And that's where I am today. When they rolled out GT for American audiences, Funimation didn't even bother releasing the first twenty or so episodes, because even they knew how lame they were as a followup to DBZ. Instead, they edited together a single episode which recapped them, then later released the uncut editions as "The Lost Episodes". So these are the worst of the worst. Later on, the series evolves into a watered down parody of what Dragon Ball Z had been, and I think that's what most American fans are complaining about when they talk about the show. But these early episodes are the real crap. The original premise was that a secret set of "Black Star" Dragon Balls is discovered and accidentally used to de-age Goku into a child. At first, the goal seems to be getting Goku back to normal, except the Black Star Dragon Balls have an added side effect of blowing up the world one year after they're used to make a wish. Worse, they scatter all over the universe with each use, so the only hope is a space mission to find them and return to Earth within one year.

Frankly, this is the stupidest thing ever. The Dragon Balls are artifacts created by Namekian craftsmen, and they were introduced to Earth when a Namekian skilled in the art came to this planet. Why would he construct Dragon Balls that blow up the Earth, where he is? Why would he fashion them so that they scatter into space, when he is essentially stuck on his adopted world with no practical means of searching for them? One could argue that this was a faulty job, an essay in the craft, abandoned when the Red Star Dragon Balls turned out to be much safer and more convenient to use. But no one ever says this. Also, no one ever explains why they can't use one of the other sets of Dragon Balls to retrieve the more volatile Black Star set. Anyway, the space expedition goes haywire when Goku's granddaughter Pan sneaks aboard and carelessly launches the ship before it's ready. This leaves only herself, Goku, and Trunks on board to carry out the mission. For the first leg of the series, these are the main cast of the show. I'm not sure how they picked that lineup, except that they were clearly trying to echo the dynamic of Goku, Krillin, and Bulma back in the old Dragon Ball series. The idea was to go back to the adventure concept of the original series, as opposed to the heavy action focus of Dragon Ball Z. This doesn't work, mainly because the characters are simply too powerful to function as adventure heroes doing Indiana Jones style stories. Back in the old days Goku and Krillin were superhuman fighters, but they were still inexperienced, and there was room in the world for stronger enemies to menace them. By DBGT, Goku has repeatedly proven himself to be the most powerful mortal being in his universe, and most of the other characters are right behind him on the Top Twenty. GT keeps doing episodes where the trio land on a planet, explore the situation a little, then stage a lopsided confrontation with the bad guy. There's no suspense to it because Goku can blow up the whole planet if he wants to, and the bad guy is usually some tin-dictator who doesn't realize what he's up against. To compensate, the writers keep employing what fans call "GT logic". For instance, this one episode had a bad guy called Lord Luud, who's a giant robot shaped like a kewpie doll or something. Goku and Trunks fight it, but the robot is pretty durable. Despite the difficulty, they never bother turning into Super Sayians, even though they can both totally do that at any time and it would even the odds. Luud then steps on the heroes, and then they finally transform, mostly for the big dramatic moment where they have their Superman comeback and toss Luud on his ass. Then they change back and start beating up on Luud as if he suddenly got easy. Luud's handler gets desperate, so he adds Pan's to Luud's power supply, giving him a boost. Pan's weaker than Goku or Trunks, but for some reason Pan+Luud is way, way stronger than Goku and Trunks put together. Well, whatever, but the situation is now looking pretty grim, and Goku and Trunks still keep fighting in their base forms. They never explain this either. It really doesn't make sense, because the Super Saiyan transformations were one of the most popular elements of the franchise. I think they wanted to hearken back to the days before the Super Saiyan concept was introduced, but they never bothered to rationalize it. So they compromised and made the transformations really really brief and infrequent for no reason. Pan never transforms, although it's not clear if she just doesn't know how, or she just refuses to for the same mysterious reason as everyone else. I could sort of buy that Goku's younger body is too weak to handle the transformation, or that Trunks is out of practice, but they still do it, just not very much. It'd be like a whole episode of He-Man where Prince Adam fights Skeletor and has a really hard time, but he only uses his sword when he needs to lift heavy boulders. The bad guys suck ass. The first real villain is Lord Don Key. Get it? Do you? Because it's a pun. He's a plutocratic fop, so he hires thugs that know how to use hand energy. Goku beats them all in like two minutes, but for some reason his team farts around for like four episodes gathering information. That's really what's wrong with the show. It wasn't a mortal sin to go for a sillier tone or back off the fighting, but the pacing ruins whatever they were going for. A lot of these GT plots resemble early episodes of Dragon Ball, except they get stretched out to two or three episodes of GT. Gags that might have been cute in two minutes get stretched out to six or seven. The next major bad guy is Master Dolltaki, who turns Pan into a doll while he tries to get Lord Luud operational. Dolltaki's gimmick is that he's a total perv with toy dolls, and he spends something like three episodes talking or thinking about what a cute doll Pan is and how he can't wait to dress her up in all sorts of adorable little doll clothes. Remember that scene from Spaceballs where Rick Moranis plays with action figures in his quarters? It was what? Two minutes of the movie? If Toei had made Spaceballs, they would have dragged that out to half an hour, and added a heapin' helpin' of pedophilia just in case it was too subtle. Admittedly, there wasn't a whole lot of places left to go as far as Dragon Ball villains. Majin Buu was an indestructible shape-shifter, and how do you top that? The first credible GT villain was Dr. Myuu, who was basically an outer space version of DBZ's Dr. Gero. Baby had some potential, but his main advantage was his power to possess Goku's friends. So he wasn't really a challening bad guy so much as he was a plot device to force the good guys to fight each other. After that, they just decided to bring back all the old villains by having them stage a mass escape from hell. Cute, but not very innovative. The series ends by having the Dragon Balls themselves become the final boss of the franchise. That was a smart idea, but it was pretty poorly executed. Ultimately, Goku beats the Evil Dragon using the same move he used to beat Majin Buu at the end of DBZ, so it really forces you to ask if this trip was really necessary. But by then, I think everyone in Japan had recognized the obvious: Dragon Ball could only be stretched so far. The franchise still has life in it, but the specials and videogames and other merchandise generally sidestep GT. I think everyone at Toei understands now that GT was a failed experiment at best. Of course, the recent Bardock special feels a lot like the same sort of watered down crap that GT was, but at least they were applying the formula to good ol' DBZ lore, instead of going in directions no one wanted to see.

#dragon ball gt #really sucks #2013gt

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calpalirwin · 5 years

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You’ll Always Have Me

Summary: Alyssa and Ashton have been best friends ever since Alyssa moved in across the street the summer before second grade. Together, they were tackling the stereotype that boys and girls can’t just be friends. That is, until they almost kissed right before their junior year of high school. Can their friendship survive the jealousy that stems from their newfound feelings? And what happens when they realize these “newfound feelings” really aren’t all that new?

And away, and away we go!

Chapter 7

~Ashton~

“Is that how you and Aly always act?” Kayla asked me, resting her head on my shoulder.

“Alyssa,” I corrected. “And yeah, I guess. Why?”

“You just seem really close, that’s all.”

“Well, yeah. She’s been my best friend since second grade.”

“I thought Luke was your best friend.”

“Luke’s my best guy friend. Aly’s my best girl friend.”

“Oh…”

“You’re not jealous, are you?” I had a feeling she was, but I wanted her to actually admit it.

She shrugged. “Should I be?”

I laughed. This was ridiculous. Why couldn’t a guy just be friends with a girl? Because at some point it comes romantic, doesn’t it, Ash? I thought to myself before pushing it away. That’s bull. I’m friends with Si and she’s a girl, too. Easier to be friends with a girl when 1.) she’s dating your best guy friend and 2.) you’re already in love with another girl. I’m not in love with Aly. You sure? Shut up! My thoughts battled each other. “No, babe. Aly and I are just friends.”

“If you say so…” her voice seemed both accepting and skeptical.

Her phone buzzed before I could respond, which was probably for the best. “That’s my alarm for curfew. I gotta go.” She kissed my cheek before dashing out the door.

I let out my breath in a huff before pushing myself off my bed. I found my dad sitting on the couch watching TV. I flopped down next to him.

“Girl troubles?” he asked, raising an eyebrow.

I shrugged, “Fuck if I know.”

He sucked his air in between his teeth. “That’s rough.”

“It’s stupid. I think Aly and Kay are jealous of each other.”

“Ah, the girlfriend/best friend dilemma. Those are fun…”

“But, it’s stupid, right? Like if Aly really likes me that way, then why can’t she just tell me?”

“It’s not that easy, Ashton. I mean, have you told Alyssa that you like her that way?”

I looked at him in surprise. “What?!”

“Oh, come on, kid. You’ve been in love with that girl since you were eight. Anyone could see that.”

“Yeah, everyone except Aly…”

My dad chuckled. “Oh, she knows, too. She just won’t admit it.”

“That’s fuckin’ stupid.”

“Is it, though? Think about it. Why haven’t you told Aly you like her?”

“Because it’ll ruin everything.”

“Will it, though?”

“It will if she doesn’t feel the same.”

“And, I’d bet good money that she’s thinking the same thing. Classic stalemate.”

“So, I’m just supposed to date other girls and deal with Aly’s jealousy until the end of time?”

“Yep. And she’ll deal with yours.”

“You know, you’re really helpful, Pops. Telling your son he’s gonna be miserable forever.”

My dad shrugged. “Ashton, you’re seventeen. Nobody has it figured it out at seventeen. That’s part of the fun. Enjoy it. And if you’re really that miserable, then rest assured, seventeen doesn’t last forever.”

“I’m not really miserable. It’s just…”

“Girls. I know. They make us crazy, son. And we’ll let them do it every damned time.”

The next morning I was more than determined to act unbothered by the jealousy between Aly and Kayla. If they wanted to act crazy, then they could act crazy. I was just gonna keep being me, which meant being Aly’s best friend and Kayla’s boyfriend.

What I hadn’t planned on was Aly ensuring her own way of acting unbothered. She was already at our table with Calum Fuckin Hood- the lab partner she totally wasn’t seeing- laughing. I flung my backpack down on the table, interrupting their joke fest.

“Hey,” Aly greeted, reaching out to give me a hug.

I crossed my arms, closing myself off to her. I could see myself do it and see how she tried to mask the hurt, but I couldn’t stop myself from being a jerk. You have no right to act like this, I scolded myself, you’re the one who starting dating someone first. And yet, the irrational part of my brain was pissed because I had only gotten with Kayla because Kayla had shown an interest in kissing me, unlike Aly. Which sucked because I actually got along Hood; we’d been on the same soccer team almost as long as I’d been friends with Aly.

Aly was quick to recover from my blow-off. “Cal was helping me finish up the lab report for Anatomy,” she said, trying to give an excuse for why she was with him in the first place.

“Good for him,” I replied, echoing the words she had told me when I told her that he liked her.

“Fuck you, Ash,” Aly said, finally having enough of my shit, which I still couldn’t stop.

“What?” I asked, feigning innocence, even though I knew I deserved a lot worse than “Fuck you, Ash,” which was pretty tame by Aly standards.

“Uh… I should go…” Calum said, looking really uncomfortable.

“Cal, no. You don’t have to-” Aly started.

“Yeah, see ya, Hood,” I said.

“I’ll see ya in Anatomy,” he told her, grabbing his bag and leaving.

As soon as he was out of earshot, Aly rounded on me. She shoved me in the chest and I had to take a step back to steady myself. “You. Complete. Ass!” she growled, shoving me after every word. “Who the hell do you think you are, Irwin?!”

Her calling me by my last name was enough to snap me out of my asshole state. Much like me calling her anything other than “Aly”, her calling me anything besides “Ash” was a sign of a line seriously crossed. “Sorry, okay?” I said, holding up my hands defensively.

“Damn right, you’re sorry! What the hell is wrong with you?! You don’t have a monopoly on me!”

“I thought you said you weren’t dating him,” I said, turning to conversation to put the blame on her.

“I’m not! God, if you would actually fuckin listen for once! We’re lab partners, you dense fuck!” She reached over the table to grab what was there- a lab report- and flung it at my face. The fight was leaving her, but her chocolate colored eyes were still hard as stone.

“Sorry,” I said, this time meaning it. “I thought…”

“Thought what? That I lied to you? That I was trying to make you jealous?”

“Maybe…?”

“And why the hell would I do that?”

“Because you’re jealous of Kay?”

“You think I’m jealous of Kayla? Ha!”

“Alright, I’m an asshole and an idiot. I get it.”

“Yeah, you are. I’m not jealous of Kayla, okay? That’s stupid. I mean, I’m not gonna start going to the mall with her or anything, but I don’t hate her. You’re allowed to date whoever the fuck you want. I don’t care.”

“Well, if you wanted to date Calum, I mean, I guess that’d be okay.”

“Gee, thanks.” She rolled her eyes before giving me a final shove.

I knew she was still mad at me, but that this would all blow over if I kept myself in check. So when I walked into Anatomy for my last class, and already found her hunched over Calum’s desk, I kept my mouth shut.

I slung my backpack off and sat in my seat.

Aly lifted up her head and saw me. She smiled and nodded.

I nodded back, giving a small wave.

The bell rang, and she said something to Hood before taking her own seat.

I tuned out our teacher’s lecture, daydreaming out the window. In the row across from me, I could see Aly drumming a quiet beat against her leg while she doodled in her notebook.

When the bell rang, I flipped my notebook shut and stuck it in my backpack.

“Hey, I’ll call you tonight, yeah?” Aly asked, leaning against my desk.

“Yeah, you working on something new?” I asked, nodding at her notebook.

“Just another song cover that I can’t get out of my head. So, I’ll call you later?”

“Yeah, for sure.” We did our handshake and she dashed out the door. I let myself be excited at the thought of a new song to give our own twist on rather than focus on the typical mix of feelings I felt towards her now.

I went home to my dad’s and holed myself up in my room. I tried to focus on my homework, but I kept checking my phone every five minutes to see if Aly had checked in. I eventually gave up on my homework, deciding that mind numbing videogames would work better.

When my dad came home, he knocked on my door to let me know he had dinner.

I sighed as I sat down at the table, pulling the bag of fast food towards me.

“Rough day?” he asked.

I shrugged. “I dunno. I kinda blew up on Aly this morning. I mean, she called me out on it, obviously. And we made up, I guess. But, I dunno.”

He nodded, taking in my words. “Well, it’s you and Alyssa. You’ll get past this.”

“Oh, I’m not worried that she’s still mad.”

“Then what are you worried about?”

“My own jealousy? I dunno. I feel like I don’t know how to be her friend anymore.”

“Did something happen between you guys that I’m missing? Like recently? How long have you been dating Kayla?”

“Like a month, but no. That’s not it.”

He raised his eyebrows.

I sighed. “I tried to kiss her this summer. When she came over to Mom’s after she came home from her grandparents.”

“This summer? You’ve been bottling this up for 8 months? Oh, Ashton…”

“Yeah… well, when she left she still looked like regular Aly, y’know? Then a month later… well, she’s not a little kid anymore.”

“And you looked at her for the first time as a girl, not as your best friend.”

“Yeah, and I tried to kiss her for it. I thought she was feeling it, too. But, then she said no, and that was that.”

“And you guys never talked about it?”

“God, no! How do you even have that conversation?”

“Like every other conversation you’ve ever had.”

I rolled my eyes. “Rich coming from the divorcee.”

He raised his eyebrows in warning. “Watch yourself.”

“Sorry. But, like how do I ever bring that up? ‘Hey, Aly, remember that time I tried to kiss you? Weird, huh?’ Like that’s stupid, Dad.”

He nodded. “Yeah, it would have been better to have talked about it right after it happened. But, better late than never?”

“I guess.” If both Luke and my dad were saying to talk about it, maybe I should. I mean, the worst thing that could happen already did, so how much worse could it get? My phone started buzzing in my pocket. I dug it out, glancing at the caller ID. “Speaking of,” I said, waving my phone at my dad before I answered the call. “Hey, what’s up?” I excused myself from the table and walked down to my room.

“Hey, so I got news.” I could hear the smile in her voice.

I flopped face down on my bed. “Got the cover done?” I asked.

“Nah, still teaching myself the chord progression. I got a little busy.”

“Busy with what?”

“Well, Cal stopped by. And uh… well, he asked me out. And I said yes.” I didn’t need to see her to know she was biting her lip, hoping I’d be happy for her.

My face fell and I was glad she couldn’t see me. “Oh… That’s uh… like did he ask you out on a date, or to be his girlfriend?”

“Just a date.”

“Oh, cool. Maybe if it goes well we could all double date,” I suggested, trying to play it off like I wasn’t dying inside.

“Yeah, that’d be cool.”

“Cool. Oh, hey, I wanted to ask you something,” I said, figuring it was now or never time.

“Yeah?”

“Um… remember when you came over after you got back from your grandparents?”

“Last summer? Yeah, why?”

“Uh… just…” I struggled to find the words.

“Are you talking about how you nearly kissed me?” she asked, blunt and no-nonsense as always. It was one of her charms, she wasn’t afraid to have the awkward conversations, and her confidence to power through somehow got rid of the awkwardness altogether.

“Yeah… I don’t think I ever said sorry. I know it was weird.”

“A little,” she admitted. “But, don’t worry about it. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t curious.”

“Curious about what?”

“Kissing you, dumbass. I mean, yeah we’ve been friends for forever. But yeah, I’ve thought about kissing you a time or two.”

“You have?” I tried to hide my surprise.

“Oh, don’t be dense. I’ve thought about kissing nearly every boy at our school. Anyway, it doesn’t matter. You’re with Kayla, and I’ve got a date with Cal. Life goes on, y’know?”

“Yeah.”

“Yeah, anyway, I gotta go. See ya tomorrow?”

“Yeah, see ya.” I hung up and rolled over onto my back, staring up at my ceiling. “You fuckin blew it, you dipshit!” I yelled at myself.

“Everything okay, Ashton?” my dad’s voice sounded on the other side of my door.

I got up, crossed my room, and opened the door. “She has a date,” I said flatly.

He winced. “Ouch, tough break.”

“And we talked about the kiss thing which only made things worse.”

“How so?”

“She said she’d thought of kissing me before. But that it doesn’t matter now, obviously. I blew it, Dad. I missed my chance because I’m a fuckin wuss.”

“You didn’t blow anything. Didn’t she say ‘no’ when you tried?”

“Yeah…”

“Did you push it?”

“No, I just let her go.”

“Then you did everything right.”

“Then why do I feel like shit?”

“Ashton… you know I’m always on your side, right?”

“Why do I get the feeling you’re gonna say that it’s my fault for feeling like shit because I got a date with someone else before Aly?”

“Well… and look, I get it. She said no, so you moved on to someone who said yes. But, you can’t fault Aly for moving on, too. Maybe if you had talked sooner, the outcome would be one you like more.”

“This fuckin’ blows…”

“I know, bud. I know.” He didn’t have any words of encouragement or wise words of wisdom for me. Just honest solidarity that sometimes, life just sucked.

#you'll always have me #chapter 7 #ashton irwin #5SOS #galcal irwin

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legionofpotatoes · 6 years

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My expanded thoughts on Anthem if anyone cares, under the cut

Here’s the thing about this thing. I had a very fun weekend with the Anthem VIP demo overall, despite its own damn self a lot of the time. That’s the short of it.

But I feel as a lifelong Bioware fan that’s been sucking off singleplayer titles and mercilessly dunking on competitive gaming I should like, Elaborate(tm)

Firstly yes, it was plagued by client-side bugs on launch, so the start was a fair bit wonky. I was trying to enter freeplay for like 3 hours. The incredible music kept me sane, but as the thankfully transparent communication came in it became apparent it wasn’t an easy issue so I chalked it up to bad connectivity shenanigans that won’t rear its head in the future. The devs genuinely worked tirelessly to get it fixed, so when I finally got to the meat and potatoes of it all I shed prior biases and tried to focus. What I found an intriguing new world wrapped in a type of game that still felt very.. alien to me. And yet it also felt like it had a Bioware heart beating underneath its shell.

Which can mean fuckall nowadays, I know; but speaking about story based on the demo is wack because the context and flow of world-building is difficult to grasp; the slice here throws us in the middle of the story with no training wheels and much of exposition locked away for the full thing. There is definitely a very rich, purposefully-built lore here (already there are traces of Bioware’s signature motifs with the legacy of Helena Tarsis, the politically motivated factions of Bastion, the controversial emergence of cyphers, etc), and it seems intent on making its fat points throughout the critical path. That I found reassuring, since my multiplayer-averse ass will eventually need to latch on to something more gratifying than loot chases in order to keep invested.

Of course that fundamentally means that the game is not FOR me, per se. Nor would I say it’s for anyone who loves single-player games exclusively and thinks of Bioware as that particular stamp factory. This is not a campaign-driven RPG that has multiple gameplay pillars feeding its narrative. And it definitely is not doing backwards flips trying to pretend to be one (Fort Tarsis initially felt like that exact type of posturing, but it has a pleasantly balancing function instead). It has one pillar and one pillar only, and that’s the loot chase. Whether or not Anthem will be a good game depends wholly on its commitment to make said pillar into the crux of everything it contains. And so far said commitment is a bit vague - it has a nice basis for these systems, but variety, presentation, and balance seem very much at their infancy.

I say this because I have tried my hand at other games of similar type - Destiny, Warframe, Borderlands, and Overwatch. No others but I think this is a good enough blueprint to analyze Anthem’s part on the market - all of these titles dwindled out on me because of the loot chase eventually being prioritized to the point of absolution, with story, character building, and even palatable gameplay pacing (how fucking fast are WF and OW, jesus christ) sacrificed at the altar of frighteningly well-calculated doses of FUN. It all feels indulgent (which is not bad) and a bit pointless in the end (this is my own high-horse take), and as I understand that’s what kind-of makes them successful.

And Anthem IS geared more-or-less the same way. It’s an experiment of a game that tries its best at separating storytelling from the loot chase in a way that one does not interfere with the other. The lore and worldbuilding is very clearly designed to support that structure. Which is good for obvious identity crisis reasons - this isn’t a game pretending or trying to please many audiences, something Bioware has been guilty of a lot. This is a story-driven looter shooter with a couple of gameplay loops that elevate its stake, but will ultimately only delay what is sure to become a repetitive experience for me, since the Gun(tm) is the only interaction with the world.

What saves it for me however, are two things; number one are the aforementioned escape bouts to Fort Tarsis, where some pretty hilarious and heartfelt characters are dotting the streets, and where Bioware’s tenure has the most room to breathe and work its magic. This is not a throwaway compliment, there’s decent work being done here. The dialogue system itself is barebones, non-cutscene conversations still look a fair bit stiff, but that twinkle of life that shows itself when you hear a character speak of their experiences is still there. The actual cutscenes look amazing and genuinely fresh, and, like I mentioned above, this isn’t an abstract canvas of lore that ONLY exists to justify the gameplay - there’s something being told here that has many moving pieces in a exciting, new-IP kind of way. Again, hard to deduce from the demo slice, but obvious in retrospect.

The second thing that I personally will look to as a saving grace is that left damn analog stick.

Because dudes. This game isn’t perfect, but it is insanely good at its selling point that was advertised years ago. The lush alien vista of Bastion is a bustling garden of terrain oddities and exotic creatures, with truly groundbreaking verticality hammered into it - the map is honestly more like a cube rather than a flat plane. And your javelin has the simplest tool to experience it the best possible way. It can fly.

This is always such a weird thing to say to people asking about my big expectations for the game, especially since I’ve basically been in bed with it since its very announcement for reasons they can’t comprehend. I don’t blame any of them of course, but it really is that simple for me - the fantasy of flight in a science fantasy universe created by Bioware is that tiny indulgent thing I always wanted, ever since playing that terrible Dark Void videogame and wishing a better studio had made it. It works INCREDIBLY well, has a balancing wink to it, and elevates the core loop a fair bit. No pun intended. Even the different javelins handle in their own unique ways. It’s just great.

Of course, there’s now a possibility for a BonerLord420 to interrupt my Quality Bioware Experience by throwing a flare in my face before leading an endless army of mobs into it, which is something I hate, have hated, and will hate for the foreseeable future. But the genuine moments of cooperation I did have felt earnest, no one was being a hopeless grief, competitive shit was kept to a minimum (enemy kills don’t drop XP directly), and my socially inept heart opened up just a tiny crack to the possibility that this might be some strange kind of fun.

Bioware DID bring me out of my shell with their whimsy multiplayer modes for the last Mass Effect games, so I feel a bit safer in their hands than I normally would with a game like this. Amazingly, I’m looking forward to exploring Bastion and finding out what this Anthem of Creation business is all about. Cautious, but on board. I definitely love the grabbits with a fierce passion, as well.

#potato #text

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tumblunni · 6 years

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okay to talk about EXACTLY HOW i would handle giving charon a big good boss fight and also sympathetic backstory and redemption and all that jazz

there are approximately ten million words beneath the cut, and also ten million raspberries in my shampoo, and these charon thoughts are just as sweet as that

alright so ALREADY i kinda did feel like he was sort of a friendly enemy when i first played the game?? like his Thing of being the constantly never fightable dude actually was kind of sympathetic in a way. it always just felt like he was Chilling Out and not giving much of a shit about being evil and also had nothing personal against you the player. he doesnt follow any of cyrus’s big philosophy and he’s clearly only here for the money and really phoning it in, and that kinda makes him not your enemy at all, even though he’s on the team youre fighting. Like I always found it a good establishing moment that in the Valley Windworks when they first introduce “hey this time there’s two galactic teammates here” and all, CHARON IS STANDING DIRECTLY IN EYELINE OF YOU RUINING EVERYONE’S PLANS. he’s just standing there! and of course he’ll never do anything to warn mars about you, the game just isnt programmed that way. but it fits really well with his character if you think of it as an intentional thing? just imagine this random gramps sitting there drinking tea while all his teammates actually Care About Things and Use Effort. He’s always criticizing team galactic’s plan too and like WHY IS HE DOING THAT TO YOU if not because Nintendo Wants Him To Be My Best Friend ok. Like he doesn’t fuckin trust anyone on his team so why would he spill the beans about his big secret plans he has to make money off of this villain plan and then bail before they actually do all the dumb shit with legendaries and such. Yes ok its PROBABLY just because its a videogame and they need to exposit stuff to the player that the character is probably just thinking and not saying out loud. But wouldnt it be so much better this way!!!! Also even when you finally face off against him personally in the postgame for his actual dumb money plan he’s still like ‘lol fourth wall breaking time im gonna not have a boss battle cos if you beat cyrus’s ass i aint got no chance’. Dammit nintend i still wanted to fight him but thats endearing so i cant stay mad at u! And he has several lines during it with stuff like “i like seeing children trying so hard BUT YOURE TOO LATE” and “youth like you can live in idealism but for me its all about the money”. Like man u remember that time i had a big angry rant about how his manga version was super OOC cos they didnt just choose to make him eviler but made him murder a child? like the only time anything involving children is mentioned in canon its him being mildly more polite to children!!! MILDLY FRIENDLY! LET ME HAVE THIS...

okay so YEAH the first big change would be just giving him more screentime and more fleshed out character in these early scenes. Make him a full on friendly character who is technically on the opposite side but has no beef with you and no loyalty to the greater plan of his team. So he’s just comically like “oh hi again! yeah lol today’s plan sucks huh?” and makes idle conversation while the main character villain admin of the day is actually doing important plot stuff. like have him along for everyone’s scenes not just mars at the start, dissappear for hours until the very end. And yes definately keep the thing of the game constantly lampshading that he’s a new character for the third version of the game, and everyone in the team thinks he’s useless and forgets he’s even there. it was annoying in the original game cos he actually didnt get any love from the writers themselves, but yknow you could give him an expanded role and rewrite that stuff to be more like “oh poor guy he’s the underdog”, yknow? am i the only one who felt inherantly sorry for him?? i mean he’s a tiny grandpa!!! and he looks so sad on his official art!! Oh oh and also add the additional running jokes and expanded characterization he had in his very brief anime appearance, which was honestly the only well written part of the entire team galactic arc. It fleshed out a bit of his relationship with jupiter who never really appeared alongside him in the game except to say “im not teaming up with you” at the end. Having the context that she finds him annoying cos she’s very serious and also very dedicated to cyrus so she hates this opportunistic bastard pretending to be dedicated when its an obvious lie. And also she thinks his laugh is obnoxious XD Oh also I liked how they expanded upon that one scene of Saturn being sarcastic at gramps and made it into an actual thing that him and charon most often work together and have a mutually sassy dynamic. I found it humanizing that anime saturn is very serious but can comically overreact to very minor teasing from this grandpa! I thought that was better than the games where he’s just serious or the manga where he was 100% changed to be 100% silly and kinda stole charon’s personality for reasons i will never understand.

ANYWAY! IN SUMMARY! show scenes of charon being endearing by being not really interested in the big evilness, being underdog-y by always failing at his smaller evilnesses and getting disrespected, and also maybe drop in some more interpersonal relationships between the admins to hint that charon does indeed have some friendship going on even if he’s a tsundere bitch who’d never admit it. Also maybe the other thing from the anime where they made him a cool computer guy? cos srsly it was lazy that the games just said “he’s the science” and never clarified wtf he actually does at his job. cos cyrus is already a science boss??? he kinda already did most of the big sciencey plans?? why does he need this man if its not for mechanical or legendary pokemon stuff OK HEY MAYBE COMPUTERS! also its funny to imagine him being a memey blogger but sun and moon actually made faba canonically that so i dont think you could improve on him. TAKE NOTES FROM BEAN MAN, NINTENDO

Also maybe you could hint at the rotom backstory before it actually happens? like could just show some mild implications that he is sad, cos the ‘friendly enemy’ thing would already be decent foreshadowing for him potentially having a soft spot. “Wah i am an emotionless evil money man” says local villain, while gossipping with Dawn about his coworkers and sharing lemon squares. But like I mean i don’t really want him to be LITERALLY that, i still like him being grumpy and guarded about his secret good heart. I’m just saying “friendly” as in.. sort of a disconnect between what he says his personality is and how he actually acts. The stuff he actually says is very grumpy but like.. hey he’s saying stuff to you when he doesnt need to, and nobody else on this team is casually talking to you as if youre not an enemy. Like he’s SUBCONCIOUSLY friendly and doesnt realise it? He’d never SAY “i am lonely hello please talk to me” but he’d sure as hell walk over to you and talk to you anyway. About grumpy things! Grumpily! And maybe express occasional compliments in a sort of “haha im surrounded by idiots you’re way more down to earth than all these adults who act more like children”. Cos in that fourth wall breaking moment he has, he respects that you’re a badass and decides thats why he’s not gonna have a boss fight. “You’d just kick my ass, so lol fight these grunts instead while i run away and do my evil plan” That is the kind of sympathetic charon i want!! He’s doing a douchey thing by breaking the script of how boss battles work and making everyone else fight you instead even though he knows that they’ll lose. But he’s also likeable because breaking the script of boss battles is unexpected and comedic! And he’s also accidentally being complimentary to you so its like SIMULTANEOUS JERK AND NICE AT THE SAME TIME. Thats the good stuff!! That quality grumplegramp content!!! if he got redeemed and just 100% changed his personality to lose all the sass and sneakyness then that’d be boring yo...

OKAY WHERE WAS I? Okay hey once you’ve established that, maybe now you have a basis for the sad foreshadowing!! Like you could have one scene where he’s suddenly NOT friendly, he’s not just grumpy in the funny sort of way but actually seems cold and stoic and actually does something useful to the team’s mission or whatever. Sort of a ‘whoa what’s wrong with him today’ thing and it could be subtle cos on the first playthrough you’d just think he was being a jerk cos he’s a jerk and all. but maybe it happens on a scene of team galactic doing some evil plan in eterna forest/other place that’d potentially relate to the rotom sidequest. like he’s just really fuckin depressed to be reminded of his one big failure in life. OH maybe it could actually be at the unnamed junkyard thats mentioned in his backstory but doesnt actually feature as an area in the original game? It could make sense that it’d be part of their plan cos team galactic attacks various energy sources and other technology related places to find the stuff they need to make the big world erasure machine. could just be simply them robbing some old generator parts after their attempt to take the whole power plant failed.

Oh and also maybe add a lil something to his last scene at the galactic lab? Cos like.. what we already have in the game has potential to be a moment where he did a good thing but no its not. Like when you look at it, hey he kinda helped you out here by being all “hey lol saturn the kid is here, bye im not stopping u, feel free to take the lake trio”. Even if saturn is the one who actually SAID feel free to take the lake trio and actually had a good hint at redemptiveness moment and all. Please never take that away, that was good, you just coulda had both of them do it, yknow? And we dont wanna make charon go full good guy all of a sudden when he hasnt even finished his characetr arc, so instead make it more of a moment where its like “im a bad guy but this is going too far”. Like maybe ACTUALLY HAVE A PAYOFF for the foreshadowing that he has no loyalty to cyrus and is blatantly plotting to betray him at some point. He never actually did!! He only tries to capitalize on cyrus already being defeated in an entirely optional sidequest that fails at delivering a proper payoff.

So hey! My idea! Add some complexity here by making it clear that charon is evil in a more petty and mundane way and not in a.. like.. actually dangerous way. Once things start getting actually dangerous he starts chickening out! Like he’s a jerk who does mean things to get money but he’s just MEAN and not friggin murderous or worldending. Give him a moment of “oh shit cyrus was actually serious oh god how do i get off of this train”. Like it seemed that he never really believed that team galactic would ever truly create a new world, and he certainly didnt give a shit about it, he just thought he found an easy opportunity for a paycheck in some dumbass’s deluded plan that’d never really work. But OOPS i guess it actually is happening, oh fuck! Give him a bit of a crisis where he realizes what he actually helped this man do, but not like a full on “everything ive ever done is bad and i dont wanna be evil anymore”. Not YET! Just friggin.. “oh fuck i cant spend money if the universe doesnt exist and also i am dead”. “PLEASE HELP ME CHILD, CYRUS IS GONNA TAKE AWAY THE MONEY!!” xD It’d be fitting for his character and a good light moment of comic relief after the emotional and dark stuff happening around this section of the game. Like he already kinda does that by having that scene of saturn snarking at him, but it could be even more funny! Move the first him and saturn bickering scene to earlier on and have this be like a satisfying scene of saturn actually winning? cos in the anime it was always charon being smug and making fun of him while saturn gets all grumpy about it, now it could be the reverse with smug charon having a breakdown and realising his whole money plan is in shambles and its his own fault.

Also maybe it could have additional payoff with Charon actually helping you take down cyrus? Again, not actually because he’s switched sides but because he's still evil but evil for different reasons than cyrus. That good ‘reluctant teamup with minor goofy villain to take down big actually scary villain’ thing. With the added bonus that the minor goofy villain is objectively a worse person than the scary villain and the scary villain is still redeemable, as opposed to in the manga where they used this same trope in the form of “cyrus is good now and we’re making charon the big scary villain to prove how good cyrus is cos charon is worse”. That was dumb. It was especially dumb cos WHY ON EARTH would you pick charon for this??? like they still had moments of him being comedic and wimpy yet at the same time wanted us to believe he was legitimately threatening? ANYWAY my idea for this is that charon’s computer skills could pay off and it could be something like “oh i always put a failsafe kill switch in my computer just in case i need to grab the money and run”. Like him being a paranoid untrusting selfish asshole was actually the reason he was able to save the day! Also it would explain why cyrus’s machine only fails and summons giratina in platinum version. the manga actually did say that charon sabotaged the machine so thats one actually good thing that came from it! Congrats u filled one plothole while making twenty more XD

OH and perhaps this same section could also foreshadow the rotom thing? like I was thinking about how he could actually choose to give up and let you take the lake trio and have it still be 100% in character. It could be an extension of his “shit, i didnt think things would get this serious, please save me from the consequences of my own actions!” moment. Cos I think that any normal dumb greedy money man would still be horrified at the idea of mutilating a thousand year old majestic unicorn of mythology and then flushing it down the toilet when it outlives its uselessness. Like he doesnt do it because he wants to help you save the day or anything, just cos the idea of killing the lake trio is just too evil for even him. It could be kind of a meaningful moment about how cyrus is doing all this for good reasons yet they caused him to do these actions that are even more evil than the actual dude with evil motives. And maybe you could establish this through a scene of him and cyrus inetracting, which could also help amp up how intimidating cyrus is, in preparation for the big climax? Have charon trying to wimp out of “disposing of the useless specimens”, but cyrus is having none of it. Like it could start off funny with him making up loads of other excuses cos there’s no way he’d admit he’s having Feelings and all. “Wait but let me have them! if theyre useless to you then i can just sell them right?? ha ha thats the only reason im saying this, lol you know me i’d never be swayed by any sentiment” But cyrus sees through it instantly and gets right up in his face like fuckin Raw Cold Fury, no you are NOT going to disobey me. He is PISSED OFF because the only reason he kept this useless senile old bat around is because he’s the only one in this group who isn’t a simpering moron at the mercy of their pitiful heart. If you can’t even do that, then what’s the use of you? So everything charon tries fails and all he accomplishes is getting fired on the spot for even TALKING ABOUT defying his boss. And cyrus just orders saturn to dispose of the lake trio instead. Saturn of course is smarter and says nothing in defiance, but then the both of them work together to let you take the pokemon and just act like they failed to stop you rather than doing it on purpose. And its kind of an uncharacteristically quiet and intense moment between these dudes that are usually at each other’s throats with funny banter. They’re united for a moment but for very different reasons. Charon knew that cyrus wasnt a good guy from the very beginning and he just underestimated him, and is now feeling in over his head and worried this could be the end. And saturn always thought cyrus was good but is starting to struggle with doubts. And maybe charon actually tries to warn saturn about it? Like “hey i knew this all along but i never told you but HEY CYRUS MIGHT ACTUALLY KILL US ALL” and saturn starts on his usual speech about cyrus being the greatest but he starts to question it and AAAAA! but ultimately this moment isnt the moment where he makes the right choice, and he does end up going back to cyrus and continuing the plan. and also charon is on the edge of actually doing something good and trying to stop cyrus’s big ol doom time (albiet for selfish reasons of No Money In The New World) but he also wimps out from this chance and instead decides to grab as much cash as he can and run the fuck away, as if its even possible to outrun the destruction of a whole dimension. but at least him and saturn agreed on the lake trio rescue operation, thus their moment of almost-redemption helped the player even if they didnt actually turn good. AND then you’d have the surprise moment of charon actually stepping up at the last minute and doing his thing to sabotage the machine and all. which again doesnt really solve the whole thing and doesnt really make him turn good but at least it downgrades the threat from ‘cyrus actually succeeds in destroying the world’ to ‘okay we just need to deal with a slight case of poke-hell and one collossal centipede’. Srsly man sinnoh’s plot has the highest stakes cos in platinum you straight up actually fail and cyrus actually would have destroyed the world if not for giratina! Oh and also a random note is that i think it’d be funny if charon helped you out while still running away? like you just learn about the machine sabotage being his responsibility cos it flashes his goofy hacker logo from the anime or something. Maybe instead he hacks your Poketch and is like HEY HELLO IM GONNA SPLODE THE THING BUT NOT COS IM A GOOD GUY, BTW I AM A SAFE DISTANCE AWAY PLEASE DONT LET CYRUS KNOW I DID THIS

SO YEAH! whatever! whether or not we get that added bit of teamup with charon in the climax, we’ve still given him a bit more screentime so the player actually remembers him and actually cares about doing his optional sidequest in the postgame. so him not having a boss fight would be less of a letdown and all. But having the teamup plot would be a good opportunity to turn the wifi event into not a wifi event! maybe during his panic charon drops the key to his secret lab and thats how you get it? cos really it makes no sense at all that the magic wifi gods can just hand you something you’d have no idea existed and never have an opportunity to get. none of the other wifi items are literally a thing owned by a significant character that needs to be teleported out of his pocket by plot magic! Also it sucks that a chunk of important backstory would be hidden in a wifi event so if they still wanted rotom’s alt forms to be a wifi event then JUST make it the ability to get the forms and not the charony diary bit. Cos it makes no sense that the ENTIRE REASON CHARON EXISTS is to introduce the rotom form event yet you’d have no clue he was connected to rotom until after youve already finished the event. It gave no damn indication you had to take the key to this particular dude’s lab in team galactic!! ANd click on an otherwise unmarked wall!! Put the diary somewhere else and hey there’s a Charon Clue(tm) and now you can actually find the damn event, there you go, fixed. Also annoying cos nothing in the event tells you you have to go somewhere entirely different to catch the one rotom in the game, and click another unmarked piece of scenery that only has a staticky screen to indicate rotom if you happen to be playing at night. Seriously this is why serebii.net was such a lifesaver!!

Okay so WOOP there we go, here we are at a point where the player has seen more of charon and had oppotunities to grow to like him as a character and be suspicious that maybe he could have some sympatheticness. And if he drops an Importante Key Itemme right before the end of the game then thats a hint that postgame stuff exists involving him, and at least one clue where to find it! All the rotom diary stuff would play out exactly the same except that its less of a hell to find, lol.

BUT THEN the big difference in Stark Mountain is that now you have the full context of charon’s backstory and the game actually reacts to you having that knowledge. Like maybe if you dont do that step first then either charon never appears at stark mountain until you do, or you get an abbrieviated version of the quest without the redemption plot? I was thinking actually maybe make it one of those daily repeatable quests, to avoid the player doing the quests out of order and permenantly losing the chance to redeem gramps. Like if you dont see the rotom diary then instead of a big actual quest you just get some five minute “oh we’ve seen team galactic sneaking around stark mountain, defeat them for Some Money Or Something hey thats weird that they were only stealing money hey yknow who’s all about the money? charon! maybe go follow up on his Importante Key Itemme to continue the plot.”

SO THEN once you return Emboldened By The Knowledge Of Good Gramps, you get the proper thing. And... it would actually play out totally the same as in vanilla platinum. Charon doesn’t have a boss fight, all his minions leave him and say he sucks, he gets anticlimactically taken out by someone else in a cutscene, and his last moment is someone making a crack about him being so frail and useless that the hot volcano breeze could knock him over.

BUT THAT ISNT THE END

Its just a fake out that its gonna have the same funny ending as every other charon appearance, and the same lack of him being remotely threatening.

cos NOW WE FINALLY GIVE THE MAN A GODDAMN BOSS FIGHT

and yknow how i said i hate the manga where he’s all super evil and owns three legendaries and kills a guy? okay take away all that stuff but KEEP THE MOMENT OF GRANDPA GETTING TO DO SOMETHING BADASS FOR THE ONLY TIME EVER

Maybe he surprises everybody by actually not being down for the count! And by now he’s just SO pissed off from a whole game’s worth of failing and being disrespected that he does something desperate and stupid at the last minute. If he was meant to be the dude who invented the red chain, maybe he could use it to control heatran even if looker took away the magma stone? like i feel it’d be in character for charon to secretly steal a prototype red chain for himself during the whole “oh fuck my boss is legit destroying the world i need to get out of here” thing. Grab some stuff to sell now your last paycheck is dissappearing into an ominous void, lol. He didnt expect to actually be using it, and if the actually completed red chain puts enough stress on its weilder to make them cry blood then this thing must be even more risky to use! so its a really huge holy shit moment of tiny gramps actually doing something intimidating! and his boss fight could actually be using heatran and actually having heatran get to goddamn appear in this sidequest. it was soooo underwhelming to have to return thru the dungeon a second time to actually see heatran, this time without any story stuff to break up the long walk...

also this entire thing could be a great climax to his character arc and sort of a moment of “okay THIS was actually his motivation all along!” Cos I always felt like Charon’s real motive was low self confidence? Like he’s always on about money but he seems to focus more on SUCCESS instead. Fame and success. “Ha ha i am the greatest scientist and i want people actually aknowledge me” is a thing he repeatedly brings up and also that other characters directly demonstrate in how they act towards him. It just feels like he thinks he can buy that with money if he’s failed his whole life in earning it. And the old “acts egotistical because he actually hates himself” character archetype would work really well as a sympathetic interpretation of his character. It would be like how he’s ‘subconciously friendly’. The thing he actually does (being boastful) is because of a different reason (not believing his own lies and being super insecure about his self worth), but he keeps it so well hidden that not even he realises that its really what he feels. Similar to how he acts grumpy because of a different reason, because he actually DOES want friends and he’s just guarding his emotions under a million walls cos he’s scared of being hurt again. And scared of how he knows he’s a weak willed person who might betray his friends again for his desperation for money. Which is really a desperation to feel valid as a human being, which is really just ‘i want friends’ again under another coat of paint. So depressingly he caused his own problems because of the same character trait that was once a positive in his life! I think he works well when interpreted from that angle, he’s like a dark subversion of a pokemon professor or of your classic ash ketchum figure. Like “the power of friendship” is what turned him evil, and also turned him into a guy who acted awful to his friends. And it could add to this thematic thing if “loving pokemon” was also referenced throughout his plot in a negative sense?

That’s actually one other good thing about the manga, they removed his greedy grumpyness (bad) but replaced it with the same motive as the villain of the 2nd movie (weird flex but okay). Aka “a guy who collects legendary pokemon just as trophies and has forgotten how to treat them like genuine friends”. Even if that wouldnt be his main character concept in this hypothetical rewritten game, it could still be a secondary trait that’s used to suppliment the main emotional arc. Like instead of just saying “money money money” you could flesh out more scenes of him actually talking about HOW he’s gonna get the money and what he’s gonna use it for. Via collecting all the rare pokemon, and to collect more rare pokemon. Which will somehow (in his twisted cynical perception of how the world works) make him a person of value and get people to respect him. It could also tie together pretty much every scene he already has! Cos his backstory is finding this pokemon friend... who was a rare unknown species. And maybe as a kid he decided to become a scientist initially just out of excitement to learn more about his new friend and show them to the world! But then the realities of the difficulties in being respected as a scientist gradually wore him down and he became more cynical, more obsessed with recognition, more believing that the only way to get it was by being an asshole and he’d just get taken advantage of if he kept being soft. And he started to forget why he really wanted that fame in the first place, and instead it just became an obsession, a vain hope that he’d hate himself less if he accomplished his life’s dream. When really from the player’s perspective its obvious that even if he succeeded he’d still be depressed when he realized how he’d lost everything in the process. And it’d be a more realistic sort of way he could have turned from a good kid to an asshole gramps. There wasnt any single day he suddenly made the decision to change, it was just a gradual wearing down of his morals over the years. he became more obsessed and more cynical that normal moral ways of doing things would never get him what he wanted. he started making small sacrifices to his personal sense of morality, and eventually reached the point where he’d completely abandoned it all without even noticing the gradual change. And somewhere along the way he forgot that he started this because of his pokemon friend, and discarded it as “not good enough” in favor of this vain quest to acquire a million other rarer pokemon and just friggin put them on a shelf to boast about them and feel less empty inside. And then also his redemption was a gradual change too? After he reached that point of completely betraying his own sense of goodness, he gradually got sadder and more tired with living this way. By the time you see him ingame he’s not remotely happy with being evil and he’s just a poor dude who’s deluded that being evil is the only way to escape the sadness rather than the cause of it. And thats why his whole ‘oops im accidentally subconciously befriending my coworkers and also the enemy’ thing kinda set him on the road to eventual redemption, cos its the first bit of small upliftingness he’s had in ages. sorta recharges his Ability To Care and he starts realizing what he’s doing and feeling regret. But yeah throughout the main game he never actually acts on his doubts and just repeatedly misses the chance to get redeemed and makes you Kinda Frustrated, similar to zuko or peridot’s redemptive arc? And ultimately reuniting him with his old best friend and showing him that its not too late to fix what he broke = the actual catalyst for his changes to fully stick and he completely switches to the good side.

BUT ANYWAY thats why he needs a boss fight first!

Something like 50-70 years worth of self hate and frustration from devoting himself to a super incorrect way of defeating that self hate, and sacrificing EVERYTHING for the sake of it, and being disrespected the entire time, and being terrified that you’re getting old and running out of time, and almost dying to some guy’s weird void plan, and losing the only thing you had left aka the team galactic job and a few maybe sorta kinda friends you had, and now being disrespected AGAIN by those same people you thought were friends (but never actually admitted it to them) and then also bitchslapped by a frog?? Also this place is real fuckin sweaty?? Yeah stark mountain is a great climactic point for his entire frustrations to boil over and be a bigger eruption than the actual volcano!

Thus we have Grand Dad Gets Serious And Has An Actually Interesting Boss Fight!

but also grand dad is being emotionally open and whoops accidentally might be tearing down those walls he built up around his big ol soft as fuck heart

like the battle would possibly be more ‘you talk him down into giving up, realizing he was wrong, quitting being evil, and going home to his friend that he misses so much. and finally realizing that thats actually the only way he could ever really defeat the self hate that drove him this far in the first place. also he’s not worthless and his friends always believed he was the awesome dude he always wanted to be’. Yknow, rather than actually defeating him and all. I mean you still do that but i think it’d be a case like with the giratina fight where even if you lose or run away you get the same result, just slightly altered text? Just as long as you come here with rotom in your party your victory was already a foregone conclusion. you just get a really cool boss fight as your reward, yknow? cos seriously I WAS WAITING THE WHOLE GAME FOR THAT DAMN BOSS FIGHT!!!

obligatory link again to the cool song i think is a great summary of all of my headcanons for this man’s character arc and would also be badass backing music for a hypothetical boss fight:

youtube

context: it makes more sense if you imagine it as his own internal thoughts of all the stuff he’s been running away from accepting in his own feelings. and/or what he THINKS that the player and rotom would be saying to him, so he’s shocked into speechlessness by the fact that they actually do think he deserves a second chance and has the potential to be good.

actually that could be a really good ending to the fight!!!

like when you get through to him and convince him to stand down, he cowers in fear thinking he’s gonna get the karmic payback for everything he’s ever done. and he tries to run away from reuniting with rotom. half of him is scared that his friend hates him and the other half is.. well..

i think it would be thematically appropriate to end it with a hug

just an image of this lil toy robot pokemon hugging this scared old man, and he’s just so empty and doesnt know what to say. its the last thing he ever expected. and then his shock turns into pain and sadness, as he was really the most scared that his friend actually would forgive him. that everything he ever did really was all for nothing, and he should have done this years ago and saved all that lost time. he’s so scared because he thinks he doesnt deserve forgiveness and he doesnt know what to do now its happening. so he just lets out all those tears he’s never cried over all these years, and the scene ends with him desperately hugging his best friend and never wanting to let go ever again

And then that’d be the big moment that was really the turning point for him, though of course that wouldnt be the end of his redemption and if there was any further postgame content you could show various scenes of him atoning throughout that. or just some images in the second credits scene after you beat the postgame stuff. i’d kinda like if there was some moment of him apologising to the rest of team galactic and joining them in their attempts to rebuild the team into something good. and maybe an extra postgame segment where this redeemified team goes on some bigger quest to try and rescue cyrus from the distortion world and heal his pain too. i think you could get a lot of good scenes out of a redeemed charon being along for the ride! like you’d obviously have cyrus being skeptical that this dude really has changed so much, and probably an extension of that earlier scene where he’s pissed off that the one guy he thought agreed with him about emotions being foolish is actually being the most emotional of everyone. but i think because of that they could also have scenes of relating together and actually starting to form a friendship in the end? like i can see charon feeling guilty for never trying to reach out to cyrus before, and also believing really strongly that cyrus can be redeemed cos like ‘yo i’m way worse than you and i was able to change, please believe that its a possibility for you too!’ Also cyrus likes machines so i think he’d be happy to meet rotom and become friends. And he has that whole grandpa related backstory so it might help a lot towards healing those scars and reuniting the two of them if he starts forming a friendship with a different gramps? THERES A LOT OF GOOD THEMATIC LINKS BETWEEN THE DIFFERENT TEAM GALACTIC MEMBERS THAT ARE NEVER EXPLORED IN THE ORIGINAL GAME

also in the original version of this plotline it was a fanfic/fangame idea of an alternate universe swap where dawn/lucas/other customizeable protagonist is a galactic grunt instead of the hero. so a lot of the details were different but in that version the protag was literally adopted by whichever galactic admin they picked as their main friendship route. entirely because of self indulgent ‘i wish these guys were my dad/sister/grandpa/whatever’ feels cos sinnoh helped me thru a tough time as a kid. soooo i cant really do that charon grandpa idea where he also renovates the Old Chateau into a ghost pokemon sanctuary and becomes like an actual good pokemon professor. (also rekindles his friendship with prof rowan and agatha from the kanto elite four cos thats just a random headcanon i have) BUT i could still do all that except the part where he adopts u cos canon dawn/lucas already has a mom lol. And i think it’d be more fitting of canonverse protag to adopt Cyrus? Like obv in the canonverse itd probably be the main boss of the team who gets the bigger redemption plot and is canonically the best friend EVEN THO for tumblr user tumblunni in particular it is All Grandpas All The Time. And i like the idea of Cyboy being a survivor of child abuse who tries to become a good dad just like his parents werent. But i also like the idea of dawn’s mom adopting him as her new big brother and him getting to experience a genuine loving family for the first time! I think itd work that way cos cyrus is meant to be 27 even tho he looks older, and i dont think dawn’s mom is that young and also i just see no chemistry between them as any sort of ship. (and headcanon cyrus as asexual anyway) But also the family does still keep in touch with all the other galactic friends!!!

hhhh i wrote So Many Word just about grandpa redemption holy shit i’ll probably die if i try and cover all the other teammates now

ok i will leave it here but just know i also have Deep Headcanons about all of them, even if charon gets the most. somedaayayyyay i will share with you more!!

#commander charon #why. why am i like this #okay apparantly i have used that exact tag like 15 times already on this blog and im betting most of them were also about charon #please love charon

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katrinawritesthings · 7 years

Text

Jonghyun/Taemin; relatable; PG

when ur talking to an old kinda friend nd u find out that u both go to the same mental institution

“Oh,” Jonghyun says quietly. His cheeks are slowly heating up darker and he’s not meeting Taemin’s eyes, teeth pressing into his bottom lip. Taemin bites his own lip. Hmm. He always forgets that other people aren’t as open about being fucked up as he is.

“Hey, um,” he says. “I can pretend I don’t know, if you want,” he offers.

also hey guess who’s cross-posting to ao3 it’s me

Taemin swirls his mini m&ms around his strawberry ice cream slowly, watching the way they leave darker red streaks in the pink. Glancing up, he checks that his dad is still a few steps in front of him and hasn’t wandered off into some other store without telling him like he usually does. He’s tired of being lost in the mall. Once he’s sure that he’s not, he takes in more of his surroundings. Starbucks up ahead, Gamestop next to it, some shoe store across, the sweet factory sadly downstairs, someone sitting on a lonely bench in the corner next to the music store….

Taemin slows a beat, doing a doubletake at the human he just saw. They look like--he is Jonghyun sitting there with his nose buried in his phone, trademark undercut and sleeveless shirt and everything. Huh. Neat. He makes a snap decision and jogs up a little bit to tug on his dad’s sleeve.

“Hey,” he says. “Hey--I just saw a friend from school.” He points vaguely in Jonghyun’s area with his spoon when his father looks over. “I’m gonna go sit with him, yeah?” Friend might be a bit of a stretch but he just tagged along here for free ice cream and some notebooks and shit for when school starts again in a few weeks, both of which they’ve already gotten. Whatever his dad needs to do here he can do on his own. He nibbles on his spoon as his dad squints at Jonghyun and then shrugs.

“Sure,” he says. “Stay there,” he adds, waving Taemin off. Taemin hisses in victory and steps off immediately, making a beeline for Jonghyun. It occurs to him halfway there that Jonghyun might not want to talk to him or even really remember who he is, but it’s too late now.

As he approaches, Jonghyun glances up from his phone, looks away, and then does a doubletake not unlike the one Taemin just did a minute ago. Taemin waves, reminding himself to smile at least for a moment, and breathes a soft sigh of relief when Jonghyun smiles and waves back. He’s welcome. Nice.

“Hey,” he says, sitting down next to Jonghyun but a comfortable distance away. “Nice seeing you.”

“Yeah, uh, you too,” Jonghyun says. “New piercings?” he asks. He nods at Taemin’s ears with a curious little look; Taemin lifts his hand to gently touch the three rings in his lobe.

“I mean, kind of,” he shrugs. “I got them before junior year but we didn’t really see each other a lot last year, so.” he shrugs again and Jonghyun nods, an accepting little thing. They were more “pass each other in the halls and smile” friends last year than “we share a class” friends like they were their first two years of high school. “Are you just here alone?” he asks. Solitude would sound nice if Taemin wasn’t lowkey terrified of getting lost. Jonghyun shakes his head, though, gesturing towards the music store.

“With my mom and sis,” he says. “They exiled me out here so they could get me a late birthday present.” A tiny smile tugs up his lips as he says it. Taemin feels a smile on the inside that he doesn’t really bother transferring to his face.

“Cool,” he says. “I came here for the free ice cream.” He holds up his cup and spoon and wiggles his eyebrows as Jonghyun laughs softly. He watches Jonghyun turn to squint down at the end of the mall where the ice cream parlor is with a little hum. He bets he knows where he’s gonna take his mom and sis next.

“So how’s you summer been?” Jonghyun asks as he turns around. Taemin blinks with a spoon of ice cream in his mouth, kind of caught off guard at the sudden extra smalltalk.

“Um,” he says, and swallows thickly. “Okay,” he shrugs. “Mostly videogames inside and Jinki making me play videogames outside.” Honestly Jinki is the best neighbor friend he could ask for. Letting him do what he wants but making sure he doesn’t get all pale or whatever. Good shit. “You?” he asks. Jonghyun shrugs as well.

“The same, pretty much,” he says. “More guitar, less outside. I did spend a week up at Northern North Meadows, though,” he adds. He cocks a brow and gives Taemin a winning smile like Taemin is supposed to be impressed and jealous of a rad campground vacation, but the name Jonghyun said brings a different thought to his mind entirely.

“The mental institution?” he asks. Jonghyun’s smile falters; he looks away and then looks back quickly, insecurity obvious in his eyes even as he tries to smile again way too late to be believable.

“Uh,” he says, “no, uh, the. Like, the campground, you know, with the--how did you know?” His fingers curl nervously in his shirt collar, but the little pout on his lips is resigned and ashamed. Taemin stirs his melting ice cream slowly, not really seeing what the problem is.

“I’ve been in and out of there for years,” he says. “I know that North Meadows is the campground and Northern North Meadows is what people at the hospital call it as an inside joke.” The actual institution has a different name but it and the campground are right next to each other and it’s been a little thing between all of the patients as long as Taemin can remember.

“Hey, um,” he says. “I can pretend I don’t know, if you want,” he offers. Jonghyun looks up at him with big, wide eyes, but before long he sighs and lowers them again.

“No, it’s… fine, since you’ve been there too, I guess,” he mumbles. “At least you know what it’s like.” He leans back against the bench, staring at his knees, his fingers twiddling inside of his hoodie pocket. Taemin sucks an m&m off of his spoon and thinks. He’s not feeling awkward at all but he’s sure that Jonghyun is. Maybe he fucked up. He should say something about the place to make Jonghyun feel less bad about it.

“Did you meet Yunie?” he asks. He loves Yunie.

“Who?” Jonghyun asks. His eyebrows have a cute little scrunch in them when he looks up.

“Yunho,” Taemin clarifies. “One of the orderlies. He’s kinda tall, dark hair, really soothing voice.”

“Oh, yeah, yeah,” Jonghyun says. Now he’s smiling, nodding and looking fond of whatever memories he’s having. Taemin smiles a quick second of a smile himself, proud that his plan worked. “He helped me a lot with just… believing myself,” he says. “Taking myself seriously and knowing that I’m not faking, you know.”

“Mmhmm,” Taemin hums. He’s super good at validation. “Every time I come back he sits and talks with me for a little bit at least.” It’s what he appreciates the most about the whole institution. Jonghyun nods, one hand out of his pocket and resting on the back of the bench.

“It’s a good place to go back to if you need to?” he asks. His fingers tap on the plastic and his bottom lip is between his teeth again.

“Yeah,” Taemin says. “I’m--well, I’m a lot of things,” he mumbles. A whole cocktail of disorders. “But I usually just go there when I get super low in my depression,” he says. Usually it’s a safety thing, other times it’s just to decompress before he gets that low. “I’m sure there are better places but it’s the best one I’ve been to, so.” He shrugs. His parents aren’t gonna pay for some super high quality, five-star hospital for him to spend days or weeks or months at, so he settles with the three-and-three-quarter star place. It works for him.

“Mmm,” Jonghyun hums. He lifts his other hand to twiddle his fingers together again. “Because, um. I’m new to the whole thing, because I finally turned eighteen a few months ago and can actually admit myself, so.” He shrugs more and Taemin pauses for a moment, thinking, before he suddenly remembers.

“Oh, right,” he says, pointing at Jonghyun with his spoon. “Has your shitty dad fucked off yet?” He remembers Jonghyun complaining at him one time a few years ago about his father not letting him go to the doctor for anything physical; of course that extended to mental shit as well. It’s good that Jonghyun can finally get the help he needs. After a few moments of him digging in his ice cream for another m&m he realizes Jonghyun hasn’t replied yet; looking up, he sees Jonghyun kind of just looking at him, eyes a little wide.

“Oh,” he says. He rubs his nose with the back of his hand. There he goes, being all blunt again. “Sorry, uh, should I have not said that?” he asks. He never knows why he’s supposed to avoid obvious things, but at least usually he remembers to not do it anyway. He doesn’t know why he’s fucked up twice today. Jonghyun looks at him for another moment before he shakes his head and shrugs.

“No, that’s fine too,” he says. “He hasn’t,” he adds with a grumble. “Mom’s been, like, talking about divorce more lately, though,” he says next. He nods an eager little nod with a tiny smile. “So maybe soon.”

“Here’s hoping,” Taemin says, lifting his ice cream in a little half-assed toast. Jonghyun chuckles softly and nods.

“Anyway,” he says. “You would recommend it?” he asks.

“Mmhmm,” Taemin says. “Unless you can try some of the more expensive ones,” he shrugs. “I hear Misty Hills is really good.” He hears they get jello that isn’t sugar-free. And, like, better psychiatrists and softer beds and more staff and whatever, but the jello is what’s important to him. Jonghyun scoffs lightly, shaking his head.

“I can’t afford that shit,” he grins. “I had to pay to admit myself.”

“Oh, yikes,” Taemin says. Add another point to Jonghyun’s dad being shit.

“Mmhmm,” Jonghyun says. “Mom helped a little and sis drove me there and back, but. Still.” He shrugs, one hand rubbing over the back of his head where his undercut is buzzed in. Taemin hums in understanding. He knows that Jonghyun’s family isn't that well-off to begin with. It’s sweet that they helped him. And, speaking of them, he sees the two of them walking out of the music store behind Jonghyun. They’re both as cute and similar to Jonghyun as he remembers. Jonghyun turns around too after a moment; he must have noticed Taemin looking over his shoulder. “Oh,” he says.

“We’re back,” Jonghyun’s mom says. She jiggles a bag from the store in her hand and Jonghyun smiles at it, obviously giddy and excited for whatever present is inside of it.

“Hey,” his sister says. She’s looking at Taemin with a fond little smile. “You’re. That one kid. That came over that one time.”

“Oh my god,” Jonghyun whispers. He puts his face in his hands, but Taemin laughs, muffling it into his sleeve. He knew he liked her for a reason.

“Taemin,” he reminds her. He doesn’t remember her name either so it’s not like they’re any different.

“Right,” she says. “Nice to see you.”

“Mmhmm,” Taemin hums.

“Mom, can we get ice cream?” Jonghyun asks quickly. Taemin keeps smiling, amused at the little blushies that have returned to his cheeks. He stands up, but faces Taemin as he straightens out his hoodie.

“Yeah, sure,” his mom says. She fixes his hair out of his eyes, then turns to Taemin when Jonghyun lifts his hands to fix it himself. “Do you want to come with us, Taemin?” she asks. “We don’t mind.”

“Oh, uh,” Taemin says. Honestly he wants to, but he kind of can’t. “My dad told me to stay here,” he says. He should’ve told him that they should meet up in the food court later or something. Damn it.

“Oh, well, okay,” Jonghyun’s mom says. “You have a nice day then.”

“You too,” Taemin says. “Bye Jonghyun.”

“Bye,” Jonghyun says, voice and smile and wave all small. Taemin waves lazily back.

“See you in school, or, like, wherever else,” he says. Jonghyun hesitates, then nods back, giving him a bigger smile of understanding. They leave him then to head to the other side of the mall and Taemin pulls out his phone to see if he still has Jonghyun’s number. He thinks he’d like if if both of them were at the institution at the same time. They could be fucked up together.

#jongtae #jonghyun #taemin #pg #brotp #oneshot #just lil uwu hecked up brain buddies #jong had been researching different ones nd was a lil iffy between nornor meadows and another one #but he trusts taem for reasons he doesnt fully understand #and he Did rly like yunie #like months later when jongs there again hes talkin to yunho about gender problems #and yunhos like u kno i dont tell this to cis ppl obviously but im not exactly cis myself nd i have a second name also uwu yunie #and jongs like ! bc Thats why taem calls him yunie #also more time later jongtae do wind up being fucked up at the same time #and they kinda just sit together in the common room #taem colors and plays with chalk bc its smooth and dusty and relaxing and happy and fun #and jonghyun cant lean on his shoulder but he can link their lil fingers together and lean Next to his shoulder #so he does that and hums lil songs that hes been working on and asks for taems opinion and its Good #also jinki is a good good frend to taem #jinki: come on fucko u cant sit in here all day u need ur vitamin d #taem: im playin pokemon i need my charger i cant leave #jinki: theres an outlet right under ur window isnt thre #taem: :v #ten minutes later theyre both sitting under taems window nd taems leaning on jinki and playing pokemon and jinkis dozing off #taem isnt turning into a pale ass vampire nd getting fresh air nd its good

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workinprogres5 · 8 years

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Ouch. Sounds like you're having a tough time max. That sucks. I've been there, so I kinda know what you're talking about. I've been in the ever circling vortex of self doubt, frustration, and loathing. It's no bueno. I know. If you don't mind lemme tell you a couple things. You can read em if you want, read em again later if you feel like it. But honestly man, if I spend all this time typing this out to you and you don't let it be a little tinder for your fire, well, you're just letting us both down. And you don't HAVE to do that. You don't HAVE to do anything. But you get to choose. (Who am I? My name’s Ryan and I live in Canada. Just moved to a new city for a dream job that I got because of the rules below. I owe a lot of my success to people much cooler, kinder, more loving and greater than me. When I get the chance to maybe let a little bit of help out, it’s a way of thanking them. ) Rule numero uno - There are no more zero days. What's a zero day? A zero day is when you don't do a single fucking thing towards whatever dream or goal or want or whatever that you got going on. No more zeros. I'm not saying you gotta bust an essay out everyday, that's not the point. The point I'm trying to make is that you have to make yourself, promise yourself, that the new SYSTEM you live in is a NON-ZERO system. Didnt' do anything all fucking day and it's 11:58 PM? Write one sentence. One pushup. Read one page of that chapter. One. Because one is non zero. You feel me? When you're in the super vortex of being bummed your pattern of behaviour is keeping the vortex goin, that's what you're used to. Turning into productivity ultimate master of the universe doesn't happen from the vortex. It happens from a massive string of CONSISTENT NON ZEROS. That's rule number one. Do not forget. La deuxieme regle - yeah i learnt french. its a canadian thing. please excuse the lack of accent graves, but lemme get into rule number 2. BE GRATEFUL TO THE 3 YOU'S. Uh what? 3 me's? That sounds like mumbo jumbo bullshit. News flash, there are three you's homeslice. There's the past you, the present you, and the future you. If you wanna love someone and have someone love you back, you gotta learn to love yourself, and the 3 you's are the key. Be GRATEFUL to the past you for the positive things you've done. And do favours for the future you like you would for your best bro. Feeling like shit today? Stop a second, think of a good decision you made yesterday. Salad and tuna instead of Big Mac? THANK YOU YOUNGER ME. Was yesterday a nonzero day because you wrote 200 words (hey, that's all you could muster)? THANK YOU YOUNGER ME. Saved up some coin over time to buy that sweet thing you wanted? THANK YOU. Second part of the 3 me's is you gotta do your future self a favour, just like you would for your best fucking friend (no best friend? you do now. You got 2. It's future and past you). Tired as hell and can't get off reddit/videogames/interwebs? fuck you present self, this one's for future me, i'm gonna rock out p90x Ab Ripper X for 17 minutes. I'm doing this one for future me. Alarm clock goes off and bed is too comfy? fuck you present self, this one's for my best friend, the future me. I'm up and going for a 5 km run (or 25 meter run, it's gotta be non zero). MAKE SURE YOU THANK YOUR OLD SELF for rocking out at the end of every.single.thing. that makes your life better. The cycle of doing something for someone else (future you) and thanking someone for the good in your life (past you) is key to building gratitude and productivity. Do not doubt me. Over time you should spread the gratitude to others who help you on your path. Rule number 3- don't worry i'm gonna too long didnt' read this bad boy at the bottom (get a pencil and piece of paper to write it down. seriously. you physically need to scratch marks on paper) FORGIVE YOURSELF. I mean it. Maybe you got all the know-how, money, ability, strength and talent to do whatever is you wanna do. But lets say you still didn't do it. Now you're giving yourself shit for not doing what you need to, to be who you want to. Heads up champion, being dissapointed in yourself causes you to be less productive. Tried your best to have a nonzero day yesterday and it failed? so what. I forgive you previous self. I forgive you. But today? Today is a nonzero masterpiece to the best of my ability for future self. This one's for you future homes. Forgiveness man, use it. I forgive you. Say it out loud. Last rule. Rule number 4, is the easiest and its three words. exercise and books. that's it. Pretty standard advice but when you exercise daily you actually get smarter. when you exercise you get high from endorphins (thanks body). when you exercise you clear your mind. when you exercise you are doing your future self a huge favour. Exercise is a leg on a three legged stool. Feel me? As for books, almost every fucking thing we've all ever thought of, or felt, or gone through, or wanted, or wanted to know how to do, or whatever, has been figured out by someone else. Get some books max. Post to reddit about not caring about yourself? Good first step! (nonzero day, thanks younger me for typing it out) You know what else you could do? Read 7 habits of highly successful people. Read "emotional intelligence". Read "From good to great". Read “thinking fast and slow”. Read books that will help you understand. Read the bodyweight fitness reddit and incorporate it into your workouts. (how's them pullups coming?) Reading is the fucking warp whistle from Super Mario 3. It gets you to the next level that much faster. That’s about it man. There’s so much more when it comes to how to turn nonzero days into hugely nonzero days, but that’s not your mission right now. Your mission is nonzero and forgiveness and favours. You got 36 essays due in 24 minutes and its impossible to pull off? Your past self let you down big time, but hey… I forgive you. Do as much as you can in those 24 minutes and then move on. I hope I helped a little bit max. I could write about this forever, but I promised myself I would go do a 15 minute run while listening to A. Skillz Beats Working Vol. 3. Gotta jet. One last piece of advice though. Regardless of whether or not reading this for the first time helps make your day better, if you wake up tomorrow, and you can’t remember the 4 rules I just laid out, please, please. Read this again. Have an awesome fucking day ☺ tldr; 1. Nonzero days as much as you can. 2. The three you’s, gratitude and favours. 3. Forgiveness 4. Exercise and books (which is a sneaky way of saying self improvement, both physical, emotional and mental) Edit: Wow reddit gold? Thanks! No idea what to do with it or whats the deal but many thanks! Edit2: Someone asked what I meant by "much more when it comes to how to turn nonzero days into hugely nonzero days". The long and short of it is a simple truth, but it's tough to TOTALLY UNDERSTAND AND PRACTICE. It's this: you become what you think. This doesnt mean if I think of a tree, I'll be oakin' it by august. It means that the WAY you think, the THINGS you think of, and the IDEAS YOU HOLD IN YOUR MIND defines the sum total that is you. You procrastinate all the time and got fear and worry goin on for something? You are becoming a procrastinator. You keep thinking about how much you want to run that 5 k race in the spring and finish a champion? Are ya keeping it in mind all the time? Is it something that is defining your ACTIONS and influencing you DECISIONS? If it is, then you're becoming the champion you're dreaming about. Dreaming about it makes it. Think and it shall be. But do not forget that action is thought's son. Thoughts without actions are nothing. Have faith in whatever it is you've steeled your mind to. Have faith and follow through with action. Ok, Ryan that's a bunch of nice words n shit, but how does that help me turn slightly nonzero days into hugely nonzero days. Do you believe all these words you just read? Does it makes sense to you that you BECOME WHAT YOU THINK OF? Ask yourself: What do I think of? When you get home and walk in the door. (how quickly did you turn that laptop on? Did turning it on make you closer to your dreams? What would?) At the bus stop. Lunch break. What direction are you focusing your intentions on? If you're like I was a few years ago, the answer was either No direction, or whatever caught my eye at the moment. But no stress, forgive yourself. You know the truth now. And knowing the truth means you can watch your habits, read books on how you think and act, and finally start changing your behaviour. Heres an example: Feeling like bunk cause you had zero days or barely nonzero days? THINK ABOUT WHAT YOURE DOING. and change just a little bit more. in whatever positive direction you are choosing to go. Edit3: WHOA! This blew up! Major appreciation to Modified_Duck for making this cool ass image: http://i.imgur.com/7xsp7hJ.png Edit4: Another AMAZING DESKTOP BACKGROUND! http://www.reddit.com/r/GetMotivated/comments/1rowpb/i_made_a_wallpaper_from_uryans01s_amazing_quote/

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pacificleo · 5 years

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I dont care about Myself

https://www.reddit.com/r/getdisciplined/comments/1q96b5/i_just_dont_care_about_myself/cdah4af/Ouch. Sounds like you're having a tough time max. That sucks. I've been there, so I kinda know what you're talking about. I've been in the ever circling vortex of self doubt, frustration, and loathing. It's no bueno. I know. If you don't mind lemme tell you a couple things. You can read em if you want, read em again later if you feel like it. But honestly man, if I spend all this time typing this out to you and you don't let it be a little tinder for your fire, well, you're just letting us both down. And you don't HAVE to do that. You don't HAVE to do anything. But you get to choose.

Have an awesome fucking day ☺

Edit: Wow reddit gold? Thanks! No idea what to do with it or whats the deal but many thanks!

Edit3: WHOA! This blew up! Major appreciation to Modified_Duck for making this cool ass image: http://i.imgur.com/7xsp7hJ.png

Edit4: Another AMAZING DESKTOP BACKGROUND! http://www.reddit.com/r/GetMotivated/comments/1rowpb/i_made_a_wallpaper_from_uryans01s_amazing_quote/

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breegullbeakreviews · 6 years

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Summary: With over a year since I’ve last played the original and with the final farewell at my back, I’ve decided to take another look at one of my favorite games of all time and grab the platinum trophy on PS3 while I’m at it. Spoilers inbound obviously as this is going to be entirely thoughts and observations of the original with hindsight of the entire series up until this point. So Spoilers!

Overall: Even after what most consider to be one of the best years in gaming last year, this is my favorite game of the PS4/Xbox One console generation. Life is Strange has moved into my top five games of all time and I can’t see is slipping out of it. No matter where you play it, Life is Strange is something worth experiencing.

Episode 1: Chrysalis:

I was lucky in when I first played this game. I, like Max at the time, had no idea who the blue haired girl in the bathroom was. When it’s revealed later that she’s Max’s friend she didn’t talk to for five years I was making that revelation with the characters. Max never even tried to contact her according to her journal entries which while inelegant are really important to getting into the mindset of Max early on. That being said I love Max. I’m a straight white dude and I’ve never related to any other videogame character like to do to Max. She is a socially awkward dork who isn’t good at saying goodbye and really isn’t good at keeping in contact with people. She is female, but not overtly feminine. While I’m not a Final Fantasy fan like she is, by the way the Square Enix self-promotion in this episode is cringe worthy, I do love how unapologetically dorky she is. She’s also pretty socially awkward and oblivious to a lot of social things, particularly with Warren who is clearly into her. I don’t think Max isn’t interested as much as she’s unaware, but that does come down to player choice. I think this game leaves Max’s sexual orientation much more open ended than Before the Storm did with Chloe, at least for this first episode. At most I think she’s still exploring her sexuality and is open to either sex, but again it’s all open to interpretation which is part of why this game shines so much.

Especially in a post Before the Storm world it is interesting to see just how bad an idea ever showing Rachel was. I’m not saying it couldn’t be done, I just don’t think it should have been done. Outside of pictures, all Max and the player know about Rachel is what she and the player are told about her by those who knew her. This paints her as an idealized perfect school girl. She was so popular she was above the schools popular kids club, did all of the after school activities, and everyone loved her. It’s an unrealistic standard which you can doubt is all true, but it’s all you have to go on. Showing Rachel turns the character into concrete fact as opposed to whatever you pictured in your head. Maybe what you know is being romanticized by those who miss her in this game, but Before the Storm says that it wasn’t. If Before the Strom did two things right with this it’s that it painted a much clearer picture as to why Victoria Chase hates Rachel Amber. While she was around she was the second most popular girl in school and was always coming in second to her. Rachel having serious parental issues that Chloe doesn’t bring up when Max asks how her parents are handling it at first seems like an oversight of the prequel, but this actually shows Chloe’s denial in this situation. These two details aren’t enough to warrant the prequels existence though.

The student body at Blackwell I like a lot to. Well you know besides Nathan Prescott obviously, he’s an ass. They make Blackwell feel more like a real school than Before the Storm did which didn’t show a lot of students unless they were tied to the main narrative in some way. The small side stories each character has never overwhelm the main narrative, but they are there to explore and all have enough depth to make that exploration worth it. This episode has Dana’s teen pregnancy and abortion plot line along with Juliet’s cheating boyfriend. While more tied to the main narrative, dealing with Victoria to get into the girls dorm gives depth to Victoria. Sadly her posy needs to wait for future episodes to get depth.

Back on Max and Chloe, it is funny how Max talks shit about Chloe’s car that’s double parked in the handicap spots when she doesn’t know it is Chloe’s. As soon as she does know it’s hers she doesn’t bring it up. It does take until after Chloe realizes that Max saved her life for Chloe to be cool with Max again. She’s very pissed that Max not only didn’t talk to her for five years, but also didn’t try and get in contact once she was back in Arcadia Bay. Chloe however didn’t hesitate to save Max’s ass which is why I still feel like she was super open to welcoming her back into her life with open arms. Both Max and Chloe are in desperate need of a friend and are willing to overlook the missing time in their relationship to have the comfort they once had with each other. While Max talks about not leaving Arcadia Bay with the goal of fucking Chloe over, they also don’t mention “the day”. Chloe’s dad is dead and her mother is remarried to an abusive controlling prick named David. Replaying the entire game again I’m also now aware that at no point, at least as far as I saw, was it mentioned that Max leaving was as close to William dying as we now know it to be. Obviously it was relatively close, but the fact that it was all in the same week makes you understand why Chloe was so hurt.

Also back on Warren, he isn’t a creep like a lot of people claim. He’s clearly interested and Max is oblivious but he’s never forceful with her. She is comfortable with him, enough that she was going to tell him about her time travel powers first, and eventually does. I’d be curious how differently things would have played out if Nathan didn’t show up to stop their talk. Straight white guy talking again here, but I feel like Warren isn’t the type of guy who would suddenly lash out like the rapey guy in Before the Storm if Max said flat out she wasn’t interested.

Another little observation I made is that the bird swarms can be seen outside of Chloe’s house in the backyard. Not sure if this is a bug or intentional but there are two swarms, one on either side of the house in the distance. Having this episode end and start with the lighthouse was a nice touch. While it obviously works to set up the ticking clock element to the story, it also gives you a taste of what’s to come. It gives you a little bit of action which will be component of every future episode. Max telling Chloe the truth about her powers is a great way to end the episode. I think leaving Chloe seriously doubting it would have been more effective in the next episode, but the snow is more powerful as it makes certain that that vision is indeed of what is to come. Also the fact that Chloe was almost a victim of the dark room is horrifying.

The episodes epilogue shows Chloe’s Mom which so far has only been mentioned in passing and seen in pictures. Luckily the teaser for the next episode doesn’t spoil anything major about the next episode. If it ruined the ending I’d be pissed. We also get the first tease of the dark room with the row or red binders.

One last thing in regards to this episode is how it talks about the supernatural. This town, Blackwell in particular has ties to the supernatural it seems. While I don’t want to see Chloe or Max in Life is Strange 2, I wouldn’t mind seeing the school again. Its ties to Native American culture are something that can explain the supernatural powers being a reoccurring thing. Obviously you’d need to set this in the past or far future to not have to deal with the aftermath of this game, at the very least tying these powers to something like this could be a cool uniting theme for the games.

Episode 2: Out of Time:

This episode is in my opinion the weakest in the season, perhaps maybe even in the franchise, but its ending is worth it and after this it’s all high quality. Now why is this episode the weakest? Well I guess that might not be the best word for it, but it comes down to the puzzle segments. They all suck. Memorizing what is in Chloe’s pockets and what happens in the diner in the next 30 seconds isn’t fun. Finding bottles and shooting them isn’t fun. The reason they aren’t fun is deeper than just the gameplay not working though. It’s mostly that all of this kills the pacing of the story. The first episode is introducing Max to her powers and the cast while establishing the mystery of Rachel Amber. This episode is just Max and Chloe fucking around up until Kate Marsh tries to jump off the roof of the girl’s dorm. If this episode was Max and Chloe looking into things for Kate and in the process hitting some of these same beats I think this episode could have been a lot better.

Kate Marsh is the star of this episode as even when you aren’t with her, she is the focus and if you don’t give her your full attention you will lose her. Even once you go hang out with Chloe, she is still calling and texting you, and nothing outside of her scenes leaves any lasting impact in my opinion. If anything this all makes the memorizing Chloe’s pockets work, if in the wrong order. If you weren’t doing that with Kate and her room earlier, then you probably aren’t going to be able to prevent her from jumping. The thing that set Kate off is a video of her, drugged, making out with a bunch of boys at a party going viral. She’s the good little Christian girl so several people find it funny, but it turns out that Nathan Prescott was involved and she was taken to what will later be revealed as the dark room. I’ve never been a girl with depression, nor have I had a viral video of me shared like this, but I have had thoughts of suicide in the past and Dontnod did a fantastic job of treating this subject with care. It lets you see all of the little cuts. Her aunt disowning her, her mother concerned, all of the tissues from the tears. While there were obviously hints at all of this in the previous episode, here it’s the focus and it’s handled with care and respect. Pulling Max’s powers away from her for this part of the game makes it all feel less gamey which is important to portraying this topic seriously. Max in the shower still feels creepy to me, especially since she’s barely legal. It doesn’t take away from the conversation she overhears, but it makes me feel dirty nonetheless.

I still love all of these side characters so much and it really does set this game apart from its prequel. This whole series takes place in early October and while some Halloween decorations were up previously, this is when the spooky atheistic takes hold. There is a Halloween party in the works and I’m not sure if it’s always an option, but Max and Warren get an invite from Dana. It’s interesting that you get the choice to decline or accept the invitation considering the series wraps before then. Victoria’s posy starts to fall apart here as she tells of Taylor for not being fast enough yesterday. Once you talk with Taylor though you get to find out that she hangs out and puts up with Victoria because Victoria is supporting her emotionally while her mom is sick. Samuel the custodian is a werido, but I love talking with him. Even once you reach the diner all of the characters there are worth talking with. The Dana subplot continues with two of the boys, Trevor and Justin having both been interested in her be cool with each other when Trevor finally hooks up with her. The cast is just so much larger here and while it’s all optional, it’s all interesting enough to be worth looking into.

Max apparently went home after the previous episode and worked with Warren to research time travel to the fullest extent possible. Max not knowing how she got her powers or how long they’ll last gives this episode a little something extra for that first play through. This is especially the case when Max’s powers seem to be fading when Kate prepares to jump off the roof. I turned down Warren’s date proposal this time around seeing as how I’d end up missing it anyway, but I still think Warren is the one true pairing in this game.

I guess I should talk about Max and Chloe outside of the context of just the bad puzzle stuff. This episode cements why I’ve never seen Max and Chloe as a potential couple. Chloe is a massive bitch in this episode in a lot of ways. She gets mad at Max if she answers her phone for Kate, holds grudges over Max when she doesn’t take the blame for Chloe, and god forbid I don’t try and shoot some guy I just met. I understood Chloe to some extent in Before the Storm, but here she’s still a bitch who I only put up with because Max is willing to because of their past. A lot of Chloe’s issues in these major choice segments don’t work because of the time travel aspect along with other little things. If Chloe didn’t want to wait inside the diner while Max answered the phone she didn’t have to. Max could have rewound to before Frank showed up and she and Chloe could have made a run for it. Hell even in the last episode you aren’t able to toss the blunt out the window to try and avoid that whole drama. I know they want to make hard choices, but these ones don’t work and Chloe is always a bitch if you don’t do everything in your power to please her.

Despite not liking the gameplay or story direction at the Junkyard, I understand the importance of the setting. This is where Rachel was buried and with Before the Storm to add context, this junkyard was where Chloe built her car and also where her dad’s car ended up. Sadly that car isn’t here and quite a lot has been added to Rachel and Chloe’s home away from home. I wish Before the Storm’s montage would have shown the passage of time in that strange cement structure instead of what it did. The Doe over top of where Rachel is buried is rather ominous as is the torn shirt nearby. Frank having Rachel’s bracelet is another thing I wish Before the Storm covered in some form. I know it’s eventually covered here, but I’d have loved to have seen it from Rachel’s perspective in that games closing montage.

This episode closes with possibly the games strangest decision, and I don’t think any other choice in the game has this many outcomes. You blame either Nathan, Jefferson, or David for what happened with Kate, but there are more than three outcomes. If you pick Jefferson you’re safe, but if you blame David or Nathan, depending on previous choices Max could get suspended. I’ve never gotten suspended in the game though as it requires making what I’d argue are some of the dumber choices in the game. What makes this whole thing work is that while in hindsight you know Jefferson is the mastermind and Nathan is his pawn, the final moments before you makes this choice do everything they can to make you think it’s David that caused this despite actually being innocent. While none of these choices really impact the progress of the story, it is a clever piece of misdirection that will likely make you regret your choices later.

The episode wraps with a musical montage set to Mt. Washington, which might be my favorite song on the soundtrack. The episode wraps with Max believing that Rachel and Kate’s situations are tied together, and the episode closes with a confirmation in the form of another look at the dark room where on a table not far from the red binder marked Rachel is one being made for Kate. Of course prior to that is an unscheduled eclipse.

Episode 3: Chaos Theory:

This episode finally kicks off the actual detective work of Max and Chloe trying to find out what happened to Rachel and Kate. The episode wastes no time diving right into it. Max is woken by a text from Chloe Tuesday night and Max heads out to meet her in front of the school. The focus of this episode is the mystery and Max and Chloe’s relationship.

The school doesn’t get seen much today, at least not while the sun is out. Regardless the student body is still present. Max is now taking care of Kate’s pet rabbit. All of the slates outside the rooms haves condolences written on the, Two girls are still up at this hour and both will let you know Victoria has snuck out. Dana was apparently good friends with Kate and you can talk about Kate’s fate with her, whatever it was. Taylor I didn’t chat with much, you can use the fact that Victoria is out to snoop in her room, but you won’t find anything of value which is a good thing. Before you can reach the main campus Principal Wells is getting wasted on the path between there and the dorms, but that’s it for the student body.

Out front of campus Max is still shaken up by the events of the day and isn’t a fan of Chloe joking around. Both are concerned about Rachel and Kate, but Chloe is the first to bring up the coming storm. Before the two can use David’s keys to enter the main building, they catch Victoria and Jefferson coming out and Victoria is trying to bribe and blackmail Jefferson into winning the Everyday Heroes contest. It does not go well for her.

The following chunk is a fun puzzle that pushes the plot forward. Max and Chloe need to get into the Wells’s office, so Max contacts Warren on how to build a pipe bomb, not exactly what she asked, but it’ll do. It’s pretty much just an object hunt, but it’s fun to see the school at night. Once inside we get the first hint at the Dark Room in Nathan’s actual file. Apparently Nathan and David were onto Rachel selling drugs. Before leaving you can choose to steal the money from the handicap fund. The issue with this choice is not only is it tied to Chloe and Max falling in love, but unless you try stealing the money, no compelling reason is given to do so. The reason to steal it is paying off Frank.

After this Max and Chloe go take a swim in the pool. Snooping around the Boys locker room you can find Zach’s phone along with his dirty texting with Victoria. Max’s is also super clueless about Warren’s crush on her when she finds a picture of the two of them in Warren’s locker. The graffiti in both restrooms is hilarious. They are all super immature like beaver eating jokes and to more direct knocks at students like Max, Kate, Rachel, and Victoria. The two swim around for a bit, but Chloe misses Rachel so the conversation drifts to her and Kate again. As soon as the two get dressed security shows up for a little light stealth. The two head back to Chloe’s house for the night since sneaking back to the dorm would be impossible. The Pool is a nice break from the mystery for both the player and the characters.

When Max wakes up she puts on some of Rachel’s old clothes since Max’s stink of chlorine. This outfit of course is also the one she is seen wearing in Before the Storm because why not. Max also is dared to kiss Chloe, the only real significance to this choice is that it decides if Chloe and Max kiss at the end of the game, of course that’s already determined by Chloe’s phone background which is based on how often you stuck up for her earlier. These choices being the pot in episode 1, the phone call in episode 2, trying to shoot Frank in episode 2, and the money in episode 3. I always go with the kiss because why not.

Downstairs Max helps Joyce make breakfast and Joyce gets some needed development. She doesn’t believe anything good has happened to Rachel but is holding out hope. She also says that Chloe wanted to be more like Max which I really find odd. While Max is eating she brings out the photo album and stumbles upon the last photo William ever took. This is also when it’s finally brought up that William died in a car accident. Max is given this photo of the last time either of them remember Chloe being happy. Chloe comes down and distracts Joyce so you can break into David’s laptop. In it you discover he has files on Rachel, Kate, and even Max. Rachel was totally hooking up with Frank, he was convinced Kate was on drugs, and he’s got his eye on Max to the point where he knows her online aliases. Before Max can relay the info to Chloe, David comes home and the two get in a fight and you must pick a side. I don’t have a hard time siding with Chloe here. Even in hindsight it’s clear David is overstepping quite a lot. I forgot Max brings up the files she just uncovered though.

The duo heads to the diner to break into Frank’s RV. Getting the keys is where the famous “beans” joke comes from. The same colorful cast is here at the diner this trip. You’re able to warn the homeless woman about the storm. The puzzle to get the keys is a fun one. It also establishes Rachel and Frank’s history among other juicy details. This challenge puts your ability to use new information to start dialogue with a leg up to its fullest. There are at least two paths through this puzzle and both are interesting in terms of what you learn about Frank. The choice to throw the bone towards the road or the parking lot is a stupid ass decision. One the dog dies, the other he doesn’t. Anyone who killed the dog is a monster.

Hidden away in the RV’s vents is proof that not only was Rachel hanging out with Frank, but they were involved and she was using drugs. You can also steal back the gun here if Frank took it. While you explore Chloe searches Frank’s computer and makes all sorts of porn jokes. Rachel has a meltdown when you show her the pictures though and goes off about everyone in her life betrays her. She drops Max off at school in a rage after refusing to accept blame for anything that has gone wrong in her life or even accept that there is no one to blame.

And this is where shit gets good. Max goes up to her dorm room and discovers that she can jump back in time by focusing on photos, and uses this power to jump back in time to William’s last photo. This scene is hard to play now. Knowing that not only is this three days before Max moves, but it’s also the day of the accident, I’m prepared to cry when I get to episode 4 when Max undoes what she does here. In the episodes final puzzle, you need to hide the car keys so William takes the bus and therefore doesn’t die in a car accident. On the way back to the present as this moment in time ends, the timeline is shown to have been altered. Before you solve the puzzle you can leave a few other marks on the past.

Max arrives in the present as a member of the Vortex club, Warren is hooked up with another girl, and David is the bus driver. Max races over to Chloe’s to find William still alive. Only issue is that Chloe is now wheelchair bound with plenty of heavy duty machinery and pipes on her. Max’s face when she sees the wheelchair bound Chloe had me worked up. I guess there is one other problem, the end is still nigh as dead whales start washing up on the shore.

Episode 4: Dark Room:

This is my favorite episode of the season, and that might be unfair to the finale, because what makes this episode work is how damn well it works as the penultimate episode. The puzzles are at there peak, the story picks up the pace, and the opening is exceptional, and it ends just in time for the finale to be non-stop suspense and action.

This episode kicks off in the alternate timeline with Max and the Wheelchair bound Chloe down on the beach. Chloe is in this chair because of a car accident she was in on her 16th birthday. Without a step father to rebel against, this Chloe never smoked, swore, or dyed her hair. She still loves punk music, but this is a very different Chloe. Max kept in contact in this timeline, though considering Chloe was wheelchair bound that whole time it comes off as ill advised to some extent seeing as he pictures Max sent were her off seeing the world.

Rachel still went missing in this timeline, though Chloe never met her. I think this is the biggest knock against Before the Storm’s main three episodes. At the end of the day whatever Chloe does back then doesn’t matter. Rachel still ends up with Frank and later a shallow grave. Prequels are hard to do well and ones in a series based around narrative choice are harder. That being said this introduces a very interesting opportunity when piled on with two other facts. One being that Max is part of the Vortex club in this timeline and two being Max is good enough friends with Nathan that she’s been to the Dark Room. I’d love to see a prequel set in this alternate timeline or at the very least more details on it. Max isn’t a good person in this timeline and with Chloe pretty much irrelevant, what happens with Rachel could be interesting to see. This at the very least is prime fan fiction material.

Max spends the night in this alternate timeline and the entire time everything is designed to show you exactly how awful this reality is. Chloe has no friends and spends all of her days in constant pain. The insane medical bills are threating to have the Price family lose their house. Chloe wasn’t expelled from Blackwell in this timeline, instead she was no longer able to attend because the school wasn’t equipped to handle Chloe’s medical needs. Basically everything is awful. Once Max wakes up and goes to get Chloe’s Morphine injector, she finds out that Chloe’s respiratory system is failing as a result of the spinal injury. Max and Chloe look through an old Photo Album and come across the picture that sent Max back to create this alternate timeline. Chloe apparently already knows that she doesn’t have long and asks Max to overdose her on Morphine so that her last day will have been the happy one she spent with Max and her family won’t have to worry about her medical bills anymore. This is your choice, but whichever way you go about it, Max’s next choice is to fix the timeline by going back to that day once more. Personally I’ve always agreed to do it for Chloe.

Back in the past this time is not something you get to play. Max goes back and does one thing: she burns the photo so she can’t come back here again. When William walks out the door Max collapses against the wall in tears and Chloe goes to comfort her in concern. Max is apologizing but can’t say what for without messing with the timeline. Max just keeps telling Chloe that no matter what happens she’ll always be with Chloe. This entire scene right here is truly powerful. I didn’t cry the first time, but this last time I was closer to crying this second time around. I don’t know if it’s because of the Farewell episode, or maybe it’s because I know for certain how this ends. Either way, it’s a scene that exemplifies the tragedy of this series.

Back in the normal reality, Max is in Chloe’s room and the two are putting together the clues they’ve uncovered. Apparently last night Max and Chloe did more digging. The duo has a lot of information, but they need a few more things before they can put together the puzzle. First up is David’s photos and coordinate listings. Apparently he was tracking a whole bunch of vehicles.

If Kate lived you get a bonus scene before you head back to school to dig up more on Nathan. Kate in the hospital if she didn’t die and Max goes to visit her. This entirely miss able scene redeems Chloe for bitching at you for answering Kate’s call. She admits to not knowing what Kate was going through. What makes this scene even more interesting in hindsight is that it wasn’t part of the original script. Apparently as the season was coming out fans really wanted more Kate so this scene was worked in here. Kate has turned around in a big way and will text you Nathan’s room number later on if you talk with her about it. This scene obviously isn’t heavy on story, but it is on character.

Next stop is the dorms where you’ll bump into Jefferson on the way in. Here is your first does of the student body this episode. Depending on if you said yes to Warren’s date proposal, Brooke might not talk to you here. She’s super into Warren but Warren is far more into Max. You need to snoop round to figure out if Nathan is on Campus, but even once you find out you can still talk to everybody first. Daniel will let you know he saw Jefferson and Nathan talking earlier. Samuel believes the strange weather is supernatural in nature while Ms. Grant believes its climate changes. Once you get in the boys dorm room you can hear Dana in Trevor’s room.

In Nathan’s room I found a graphical bug among other things. The projector was shooting out a black cone. Nathan’s room reveals quite a lot. One is that Chloe’s conversation in the bathroom at the games start is over the time Nathan drugged her in his room. There are also some pictures in Nathan’s drawers. Max manages to find Nathan’s phone, but before they can escape Nathan shows up and Warren once again steps in to protect Max. You can choose to call Warren off after he’s got Nathan down or let him keep going. This can give Chloe a gun if she lost it in episode 2 and never picked it up in episode 3.

Max and Chloe ask Warren to look into Nathan’s father while they head off to talk with Frank. Max is now totally aware Warren has a crush on her, but doesn’t say anything to him about it. Getting Frank to talk is a conversation puzzle. If you’ve got a gun you can’t lose. Worst case Chloe kills Frank and his dog. Best case no one gets hurt. There is a middle ground where Frank gets wounded, but which way you go is up to you. This is a rather time consuming puzzle, but that is mostly because it’s replaying the same conversation a lot.

Now it’s time for the complicated puzzle. You need to figure out when Frank sold Nathan drugs by matching the code names to the sales papers. You need to match license plates from David’s pictures to the coordinates he’s been keeping. You need to break into Nathan’s phone to get his texts with Frank. Once you’ve done all of that you need to match up the texts, coordinates, and the drugs dealings to figure out where Nathan went that night with Kate. It’s a tough puzzle, but it’s satisfying to put this all together. You can cheat Nathan’s phone, but everything else you need to figure out on your own.

At the barn the two discover the hidden bunker beneath. This is the notorious Dark Room. A few light puzzles make up the process of getting into the barn, getting to the bunker door and finally opening that door. In the Bunker is binders for Victoria, Kate, and Rachel, along with plenty more. Kate’s binder is full of pictures of her drugged out of her mind on the nearby set. Rachel’s on the other hand show her in a hole in the junkyard. Victoria’s binder is empty hinting that she is next up. The two races to the Junkyard where Chloe and Max start digging with their hands to find Rachel dead and buried where that photo was taken. As Chloe cries and Max comforts her, the spirt of the Doe looks on. For whatever reason this scene never hit me that hard. I always assumed the worst for Rachel and sure as shit it’s what happened.

Onto the end of the world party. Max wants to go to the Police, but Chloe wants true justice by her own hands so the two head to the Vortex clubs party. To continue with the unexplainable phenomena there are two moons in the sky tonight. Warren is wasted and Chloe is on a war path, but Chloe stops while Max and Warren take a Selfie together, and later this picture is important. The party itself is at the pool and pretty much every student is there. Chloe marched on ahead so Max looks for Nathan alone. The search continues until Max talks with Victoria. If you weren’t nice to Victoria in episode 1 you can’t successfully warn her here since she won’t believe. It’s all for naught though, because Nathan isn’t the mastermind, Jefferson is. In fact warning Victoria successfully will get her killed. Before you can leave the party with Chloe, Jefferson announces Victoria as the winner.

Chloe and Max head out to find Nathan when he texts them implying he’s destroying Rachel’s body. At the Junkyard Max is drugged and Chloe is shot in the head killing her instantly. Before Max blacks out she sees that it was Jefferson who did this and he stands over her menacingly. No musical wrap up, just cut to black and credits. The tease for next week has a meek voice saying no in the Dark Room while a gloved hand gets more drugs, and outside the Storm has arrived.

Episode 5: Polarized:

The final episode of Life is Strange has a polarizing reception. Personally I love it but I understand the complaints. What makes this ending work is exactly what must people don’t like. There are some dialogue choices here, but only one matters, and that’s the final choice before control is ripped away from the player. The entire episode is mostly fast paced action paired with psychological horror, and I’m going to try and explain why this works by comparing it to one of my other favorite games, Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater. Metal Gear Solid 3 is a stealth game, but the final hour is anything but. It goes from boss fight to over the top chase scene to boss fight to somewhat slow segment to boss fight to finale cut scene. Polarized has a similar style it upends the normal gameplay style and goes bat shit insane for the majority of the episode before it hard stops. The sudden dramatic shift in tone helps land that punch. You’re already thrown off by the different tone, but switching back to the original tone is still jarring, and before you can readjust they nail the final blow. Now to be fair I don’t think it works as well in Life is Strange since this isn’t a game built around action sequences, but I do think it works.

The first chunk of the episode is Max trying to escape the Dark Room. This involves Max, who is tied to a chair on set using her ability to jump back in time to when photos were taken to go back and relieve the photo shoot with Jefferson in order to work a way out. During these jump backs Max learns that Jefferson befriends Nathan in order to use his money to fund this little side project and that he killed him last night. He also plans on killing Max. After enough little changes Max jumps back in time to the selfie she took in Jefferson’s class on Monday. She texts David everything she knows about the Dark Room and turns in her photo for the “Everyday Heroes” contest. When Max jumps back she’s on her way to San Francisco having won, but with Wells since Jefferson was arrested. Everything is wrapped up to nicely though. Max gets another vision of the storm and sure as shit it’s hitting Arcadia Bay right now. Desperate to get back to Arcadia Bay, Max jumps into her submission and destroys it in the past. The only reason this fake out doesn’t work is because of the collectibles and how early into the episode it happens. Of course it’s not over yet.

Back in the new present Max is back where she started this episode, but this time Max’s journal has been destroyed by Jefferson so she has no pictures to jump to. Before Jefferson can kill Max suddenly someone enters the bunker. It’s David and you guide him through a fight with Jefferson. With Jefferson down and out you’ve got the chance to make up with David and tell him what happened to Chloe. If you do the latter he kills Jefferson in rage. This is set up as a major choice, but as I said earlier, there is only one in this episode. Max still needs to save Chloe and luckily Warren took that picture last night so she can change the past and save Chloe, but she needs to get to Warren first. He’s at the Two Whales diner in town and Max steals Jefferson’s car to get there. I love this little action scene here. Max fighting anyone wouldn’t be fitting of the character. Having Max fight through someone else however works. It’s a boss fight in a roundabout way.

Nathan sent Max an apology for everything last night before Jefferson killed him along with a warning which she listens to on the drive into town. He’s sobbing as he records this and it feels genuine. Max has to get out of the car before her destination because of wreckage on the road. On the last stretch of road before the diner there are four reoccurring characters Max can save along with several people who are already dead. Even when Max gets to the diner she needs to stop it from blowing up before she can go in the back. Inside is Joyce and Warren along with Frank and Pompidou if they didn’t die. You can convince Joyce on whether or not to forgive David and if Frank is alive tell him how his dealings killed Rachel. Max tells Warren exactly shy she needs the photo by explaining her powers, and that she believes that her powers started this storm. He believes her. Before you jump into the phot you get the option hug Warren, kiss him, or just leave. I always give him the smooch since why not. The timeline is fucked anyway. The actions stuff here works, though the exploding diner is a bit much. I also wish the dead bodies were of some of the students or something. The grieving woman over her dead lover towards the end could have been Dana and Trevor and that would have carried a lot more weight than two no names.

Back before the party Max tells Chloe everything that is going to happen. Nathan is already dead, Jefferson killed him and drugged and kidnaped Max. Max also reveals he alternate realties here including the one where she saved William and fucked up Chloe’s life to the point where she wanted to die. Max knows when this moment ends she’ll forget all of this and come back in the present. The plan is to tell David everything and hide somewhere safe. Yes this saves Chloe, but the Storm is still heading towards town while Max and Chloe flee to the lighthouse which is out of the storm’s path. Before Max can get there though she passes out. Queue the insanity.

What follows is Max’s nightmare. A twisted and fantastical series of scenes remixed and in some cases wholly original in order to convey Max’s internal conflict. Things start with a recreation of the opening class room scene where birds crash against the window leaving splatters of blood until the bell rings and everyone disappears. When Max goes to leave, Jefferson reappears and all Max can say in regards to his offer for her to stay in the Dark Room forever is either acceptance or demeaning herself. I think this scene is a representation of Max’s lack of confidence in herself, particularly in her photos.

If the latter is true, than this next scene is Max’s fear that she just ruins everyone’s lives. This twist on the girl’s dorm requires you to find the right door to exit in each loop. Kate either blames you for letting her die or for making sure no one will ever leave her alone again for fear she’ll try and kill herself again. Most of this isn’t reacted to by Max, but the scene with Kate is and it shows.

I don’t know what the next scene is supposed to convey, but it’s the opening title scene from episode 1. What’s changed is that everyone but Max is going backwards. This includes a backwards version of “American Girls”. The optional photo in here is even taken in reverse by opening your journal. Entering the Bathroom enters Max into the final real gameplay segment.

What follows is a hellish otherworldly maze where Jefferson is looking for Max. The walks are decorated with his photos of Kate, Rachel, and Max in walls decked out like the art gallery from earlier. The second part of the maze is just sneaking past a spot light shaped like the statue out front of the main building. The next part of the maze is all lockers and a bunch of guys from the school are looking for Max. The final part is inspired by the junkyard and even has bottles to find for the final picture. Max comments about them being hard to find which is funny and Frank also references the beans thing here, that one kind of kills the creepy atmosphere.

Sitting on the bench at the lighthouse puts Max inside a snow globe on the mantle back on the day William died. The view is right over the fireplace where Max burns the picture. Max also gets a text from William about letting him die. In fact there are a lot of texts. The scene fades to Max strapped in a chair in the dark room and Jefferson shooting Chloe while they both insult her. Then Chloe kissing Warren, then Nathan hanging out with Chloe. Then her in Victoria. Then Chloe in the wheel chair, then Chloe photographing Max. This scene is obviously Max feeling like she isn’t good enough for Chloe.

Suddenly Max is locked in the diner bathroom with a key lock on her side. Once she escapes everyone is in the diner but perfectly still and blaming Max for ruining their lives and killing them. Max is sitting at the same seat where she showed her powers to Chloe, but that’s not the Max you’re playing as. This Max is a remnant left behind by Max’s time manipulation. This remnant believes Max has used her powers for selfish reasons and tries to guilt trip her. Then Chloe walks in and says that this remnant Max is talking crap. Cut to another hellish landscape with models of all of your time spent with Chloe. It ends with Max walking back into the present and consciousness atop the hill with the lighthouse.

Max changed enough to cause the storm and realizing this Chloe gives Max the photo from the Bathroom to go back and not save her. This is the final choice. Sacrifice the bay and Max and Chloe ride off leaving the town in ruins. Sacrifice Bae and every choice you made this week is undone leaving Max with just the memories of a week that never was. This is the final choice. It’s important to note that Chloe is willing to sacrifice herself to save the town considering she brings it up, but she realizes it’s Max’s choice as only she can do it.

I always will sacrifice Chloe, I got the kiss this time without getting the Max and Chloe phone background in episode 3. Max goes back in time and doesn’t save Chloe and instead just cries in the corner. No more words after Chloe’s last. Just Spanish Sahara. The moment in time ends and Max is returned to the present. Nathan is arrested. Jefferson is arrested, I assume turned in by Nathan. Max meets with the Price family to morn Chloe. When Max arrives in the present she’s at the lighthouse dressed in black. The funeral is the next day after Max returns to the present. Kate is still alive in this timeline, regardless of what choices you made because none of the situations in that episodes came to pass. The blue butterfly lands on Chloe’s casket and Max smiles. The end.

So why do I not save Chloe? Well to be honest I didn’t even think it’d be a choice. As far back as the ending of episode 3 when I first played this game I knew where this was going. Chloe would need to die. When the choice came up and Chloe accepted it was long past her time I went along with her because I value the lives of many over the life of one. When someone pointed out that this ending invalidates all of your choices it cemented my choice as what I believe as the right one. I believe Max got her powers so she could have that last adventure with Chloe and spend some time with her before she died. Without that power Chloe and Max wouldn’t have seen each other in the final five years of Chloe’s life. As soon as Nathan was arrested the truth about everything would have come out as it does. It was about creating memories.

#video games #review #life is strange #DONTNOD Entertainment #spoilers

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